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CCHRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 







THE AUTHOR IN RUSSIA 



i a war zone 
Igadabout 



Being the Authentic Account of 

Four Trips to the Fighting Nations 
During 1914, '15, '16 



BY 

WALTER AUSTIN 



BOSTON 
R. H. HINKLEY COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
1917 






Copyright, 191/ 
By Walter Austin 



m-.P > 

JUN -6 1917 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. 



©CIA 4 6 2909 



PREFACE 

Gadabout — one who travels without any business. — March's Thesaurus. 

THIS book contributes to the already large bibli- 
ography of the Great War little new or im- 
portant information. It is the solitary diary of 
a solitary tourist without skill in the graphic arts — the 
plain tale of one who went forth to see and hear of the 
happenings of the World War as the lone sightseer might 

— to compare and contrast them. The writer thinks that, 
in his four different visits to the warring nations in the 
course of twenty-six months, he has had more opportunity 
to note contrasts than most of those who have previously 
written of the conflict. They have had to stay generally 
at fixed posts and of necessity have seen the conflict from 
one angle. The writer, being a mere gadabout tourist, 
able to go wherever his fancy led and the powers that 
be permitted, has had the good luck to see it, although 
only briefly and superficially, from several angles. 
Therein lies the principal difference between this and 
other books which have told of the War. For the same 
reason there will not be found here first-hand accounts 
of fighting. Richard Harding Davis once wrote a book 

— " The West from a Car Window." This might be 
called " The War Game from the Bleachers," for most 



vi PREFACE 

of these observations of the sanguinary struggle have 
been made from an equally remote coign of vantage. 

During each of my four trips to the warring nations, 
I was always looking about for other vocationless gentle- 
men of large leisure. But though many traveled, few 
were tourists. In fact all had business — soldiers, states- 
men, war-correspondents, doctors, priests, nurses, sales- 
men, refugees foraging for food and shelter. I alone 
was " traveling about without any business." And I 
doubt if there is today one to dispute with me the title 
under which these pages appear. If such there be, let 
him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace. 

Some have challenged my presumption in intruding 
where I had no business and was likely to find scant 
welcome. I can only retort that I always tried to " do 
my bit " by contributing to Relief Work when opportu- 
nity offered and talking and writing in behalf of the 
Allies whenever I had the chance. In every one of the 
countries visited I experienced uniform courtesy and 
kindness. I never received an undeserved harsh word. 
Often there was delay, often there seemed to be undue 
quizzing. But I am convinced that it was justifiable in 
every case. 

For the privilege of meeting dignitaries abroad and 
other courtesies, I am indebted to the Hon. Richard 
Olney, 2d, Hon. Andrew J. Peters, Hon. Winslow War- 
ren, Hon. Frederick J. Stimson, Courtenay Guild, Esq., 
and others. Also to my cousin, G. Howard Maynadier, 
Esq., for helping me prepare this volume for the press. 



PREFACE vii 

For permission to reprint contributed articles I wish 
to thank the Boston Evening Transcript, the Dedham 
Transcript J and Everybody's Magazine. 

Finally, I am glad to register my obligations to my 
wife for her loyal co-operation in removing all domestic 
obstacles and repeatedly smoothing the way for the War 
Zone Gadabout. Walter Austin. 

Dedham, Massachusetts, 
June, 19 1 7. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE V 

FLIGHT THE FIRST, OCTOBER 14 — DECEMBER 16, 1914 

CHAPTER ONE — London — The War a Sporting Event, 
Devoid of Gloom — Detained as a Spy for Talking to a 
German Lady and Carrying Her Luggage . . . . i 

CHAPTER TWO — Antwerp Under German Rule — "Um- 
steigen " — Berlin — The Elderly American Ladies and 
Their Patriotic Draperies 8 

CHAPTER THREE — Berlin — Otto Werner, My Beau 
Brummel Cicerone — Arrested for Talking to British 
Prisoners — I Call for "The Marseillaise" ... 17 



CHAPTER FOUR — Berlin — Alleged Allied Atrocities — 
Potsdam and Sans Souci — Essen — "A Boston Ameri- 



24 



CHAPTER FIVE— Holland — Hotchkiss, the Incomparable 
— London — Allen Joins Us With His Car, "The Dread- 
naught " — Boulogne — Havre — The Colonel's Story of 
What Happened at Mons — Two Peasant Women Ride 
With Us 29 

CHAPTER SIX — Calais — German Airplane Threatens — 
Dunkirk — Belgian Boy Heroes — Airplane Drops Bombs, 
Killing Others While We Sleep — Furnes — Commandant 

Warns of Danger 39 

ix 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER SEVEN — Ypres Under Bombardment — Shell 
Hits Cathedral ; We Narrowly Escape Death — Under Fire 
Between the French and German Lines — Arrested as 
Spies, Adjudged to be " Fools " and Sent Back ... 48 

CHAPTER EIGHT — In the Belgian Field Hospital at Furnes 

— Dunkirk Again — Pat Buries a Live German — Havre — 
Rouen — I Reach Paris With Fourteen Cents ... 58 

CHAPTER NINE — Paris — Buying German War Trophies 

— Havre — The " Dreadnaught " Commandeered — Comes 
Back Branded — Taken for a Whiskey Peddler — Held up 
at the Dock — Sail from Liverpool — Mine Explosion 
Barely Misses Ship — Home Before Christmas — I Win 

My Wager 65 



FLIGHT THE SECOND, OCTOBER 3-31, iQiS 

CHAPTER TEN — Passport Regulations Stiffen — London 
Set of Jaw, Forbidding — Zeppelin Raid of October 13th — 
Bombs Narrowly Miss Me — Great Devastation — An 
"R.A.M.C." Craves a "Bracer" ^^ 

CHAPTER ELEVEN — London — Gadabouts Not Wanted — 
Swarthy Bulgarians — Inquisition at the Permit Office — 
Motor Trips — I Take Passage Home on the New York 89 



FLIGHT THE THIRD, APRIL i — MAY 22, 1916 

CHAPTER TWELVE — Off for Bordeaux — " Torpedoitis " 
Rages Throughout the Ship — Chinese Colonials at Bor- 
deaux Rouse Enthusiasm 96 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN — Paris — Wonderful French Spirit 
— Student Artists — Dogged by Secret Service Men — 
American Benefactions — From the Tables at Monte Carlo 
to the Pews at Nice — Impressions of France . . . 102 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

FLIGHT THE FOURTH, OCTOBER i8 — DECEMBER 21, 1916 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN — Breaking and Entering Russia — 
Stowaway Proves to be German Officer — Preparing to 
Run the Gauntlet of the Frontier 112 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN — Herding Men Like Cattle in Rus- 
sian Pens — Apples for "Bombs" — Chemical Baths to 
Lay Bare Invisible Writing on Suspected Backs . .118 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN — A Unitarian Catechism — Petro- 
grad to Moscow in Defiance of Orders — The Royal Suite 
at $35 a Night — No Writing Can Pass the Frontier . 124 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN — Petrograd — "Kwass" Dis- 
places Vodka — Food Shortage Acute — Religious Fervor 
of the Russian Soldier 130 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN — Petrograd — Eighteen Millions 
Under Arms — Two Million Refugees in Two Cities — 
The Perils of Speaking German 135 

CHAPTER NINETEEN — The Duma in Session — " Vox 
Populi" at Close Range — The Hated Ministers Attend 
and Hear Themselves Condemned 139 

CHAPTER TWENTY — A Socialist Mentions Peace and the 
Duma Starts an Uproar — Stiirmer Called a Traitor and 
His Removal Demanded — Professor Miliukoff — The 
Voice of the Press not Equal to the Duma's .147 

VALEDICTORY i55 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Author in Russia Frontispiece'^ 

The Lusitania — The Author's Credentials . . facing page i^ 

Passport « « g. 

Ruined Buildings, Antwerp " " lO" 

German Recruits — British Prisoners . . . " "18" 

Post-Cards, Berlin " "24^ 

Souvenir of Lord Mayor's Day — E. B. Hotchkiss, 

A. J. Allen " "32' 

Map of Northern France " "34" 

The Permis '' '' 36^^ 

Belgian Refugees — Burial of French Soldier . " " 46^ 

The " Dreadnaught's " Belgian Flag . . . " " 48^ 
The China Image from Ypres — The Cathedral, 

Ypres « « ^Q^ 

Shell Hole, Ypres — The Cloth Hall, Ypres . . " " 52*^ 
King Albert at Furnes — Captured German 

Mortars « " 60' 

The " Dreadnaught " and its Crew . . . " "66' 
Nurses and Auto Ambulances at American Ambu- 
lance, Neuilly " " 68 " 

Post-Cards, Paris " "70'^ 

Sergeant Rouchy — Group on the Transylvania . " " 76 -^ 
Governor Walsh's Letter — Department of State 

Letter " " 78' 

English and Canadian War Posters . . . " "80"^ 
The Zeppelin over London — Ruined Buildings . " " 86'' 
German Prisoners at Frimley — London Search- 
lights " " 94' 

Application for Permit Granted .... 95*^ 

xiii 



XIV 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



for 



" Taisez-Vous " Sign — Reservists, Paris 
Student Artists' Cards, Paris 
Souvenirs ...... 

" Sauf-Conduit " — " Permis de Sejour " 

Passport 

Russian Post-Cards — Temporary Receipt 

Passport ...... 

Captured German Cannon — Nevsky Prospect 
Russian Posters — Meeting-Place of the Duma 
Author's Pass to the Duma .... 

The Duma in Session ..... 

M. Rodzianko — Paul Miliukofif — Boris Stiir 

mer — Gregory Rasputin 
Revolutionists in Control, March, 1917 . 



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Copyright, International News Service 

THE LUSITANIA 



Sltfp Qlranarript i»0a. MtOYpamtth 

PUBLISHERS OF 

®1|? i^bltam ®rattfirn|Jt 

PRINTING AND PUBLISHING IN ALL ITS BRANCHES 
Dedham. Massachusetts. U. S. A. 

TELEPHONE. DEDHAM S90 



/ WALTER AUSTIN > 
Special Correspondent 



(.over) 



67 MILK 


ST., BOSTON 


•| 


TELEPHONE. 


FORT HtLL 297 1 


..J 



THE author's credentials ON HIS FOUR FLIGHTS 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

FLIGHT THE FIRST 
October 14 — December 16, 1914 



CHAPTER ONE 

London — The War a Sporting Event, Devoid of Gloom — 
Detained as a Spy for Talking^ to a German Lady and Carry- 
ing Her Luggage. 

IT all started back in 1898, when I tried to get into 
the Massachusetts militia so that I could go to 
Cuba and fight Spaniards. Being refused, I got 
a billet as supercargo on a supply ship and sailed into 
Santiago in time to see some of the '' doings " — just 
enough to whet my curiosity and my tast^ for adventure. 
Then in 1904- 1905, during the Japanese-Russian war, 
I happened to be in Japan. Here was another — and a 
bigger — chance, I thought, to taste adventure and to 
see history in the making, but a cold " turn-down '' by 
the Mikado's government kept me from steaming away 
on a self -commandeered craft to the siege of Port Arthur. 
In the fall of 19 14, however, I had better luck, for on 
October 14th I sailed from New York on the Lusitania 
for Liverpool. I must confess that I had no better excuse 

I 



2 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

for going abroad than sightseeing, but that seemed to 
me reason enough. The first general European war in 
ninety-nine years had burst upon an unsuspecting world, 
and I wanted to have a glimpse of those conditions that 
had long been talked of as possible, but that few, if any, 
Americans had expected would come in their day. Be- 
sides, I had wagered a box of cigars with a friend of 
mine that I could get to England, Germany, Belgium 
and France and return to New York before Christmas. 
Hence my determination to smell the smoke of Battle in 
order to puff the cheroot of Peace. 

We had a very smooth passage and sighted but one 
vessel during the entire trip. The steamer's transforma- 
tion gave us our first intimation of warfare. It was 
painted gray throughout, and at night all lights were 
carefully covered. When we arrived off the Welsh coast 
at night we had a sterner omen of strife, for searchlights 
from the shore were constantly played on us. But there 
was no apparent anxiety among the passengers, since 
that was before the days of submarine " f rightfulness,*' 
and we docked safely. 

From Liverpool I proceeded at once to London, where 
I put up at Morley's Hotel in Trafalgar Square — that 
quaint tavern of uncertain age and indubitable British 
atmosphere. 

The next day was Trafalgar Day. About the Nelson 
Monument, in front of the hotel, was gathered the larg- 
est crowd I had ever seen. At the base of the shaft 
were strewn wreaths, contributed by veterans of many 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 3 

wars, from the Crimean down to the present conflict. 
Among the most touching were those sent by the surviv- 
ors of the Aboukir^ Cressy and Hogue, the British cruis- 
ers which not long before had been sunk in the North 
Sea by the German submarine, U-5, with a loss of 1,500 
men. 

There was little in London to suggest war. The 
whole city was gay and business was proceeding as usual. 
Merchandise prices were moderate. All theatres and 
cafes were open, although many of the latter conspicu- 
ously displayed this sign : " No German or Austrian 
Waiters Employed Here." Evidently to the British mind 
the war was but a sporting event. It had not yet 
sobered the English asi I heard it had the French. 

The only conspicuous sign of war was a perfect sea 
of flags and pennants. From every available staff there 
floated the Cross of St. George, or the French or Belgian 
or Russian colors. But as I looked about I discovered 
other signs. Auto-busses and tram-cars displayed flam- 
ing posters, exhorting citizens to enlist. Here and there 
recruiting activities were going on in the public squares 
with all the blare of brass and beating of drums that 
characterize a Salvation Army rally. Spellbinders held 
the spectators breathless as they described the glories of 
patriotism, and called upon every Cockney present to 
" do his bit." As a spectacular and very effective perora- 
tion, the speaker would always conclude by pointing 
straight at the nearest available man, and shouting, 
" You, my fine fellow — Britain needs you right here 



4 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

and now! Step up and get your name on the roll, and 
tomorrow we will have you in khaki — your country will 
thank you and your girl will be proud of you." The 
direct appeal, coupled with the accusing glances of the 
bystanders, was invariably too much for the blushing and 
self-conscious victim. Half pushed and half pulled, he 
would land on the platform, and inside of two minutes 
his name and address would be officially entered on the 
recruiting rolls. In a daze he would step down, even 
then but half realizing that from now until the end of the 
conflict he was to be but a helpless pawn on the sangui- 
nary chessboard of war. 

In sharp contrast to these heroic efforts of the re- 
cruiters was the stupid policy forced upon the British 
press by the official news censors. Regularly, monoto- 
nously, the English newspapers published accounts of vic- 
tory after victory for the Allies. And nowhere in the 
roseate record was the cloud of defeat anywhere discerni- 
ble. The result was, naturally, a universal feeling of 
apathy, a feeling well typified by the remark made to me 
by a young clerk in one of the shops. In reply to my 
query why he was not in khaki, he said : 

" In khaki ? Why should I enlist ? The papers say 
we're winning all the battles. Before I could ever get a 
chance at the front, the war'd be over. I don't want to 
spend two or three months doing drills on Salisbury 
Plain and then be mustered out without having had a 
smell of powder." 

There was one danger, though, that London was just 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 5 

beginning to recognize — the danger of the Zeppelin. 
All street lights, encased in round globes, were painted 
black on top so that the illumination was confined to a 
downward thrust, and was invisible directly overhead. 
This produced a sort of half light that was gloomy. But 
it was the most brilliant illumination compared with the 
arrangement I found a year later. 

I had been in London about four days, when I chanced 
to meet an American who had just come from Berlin. 
He told me that Americans were welcomed in Germany 
and that it was easy to get in and out. I was making 
my trip to see all that was possible of the war, and 
although I had been in England only four days, I had 
seen about as much as a casual visitor could of the dif- 
ference between London in war time and the London 
that I had known under normal conditions. Accord- 
ingly I decided now to go to Berlin and to entrain for 
Folkestone as soon as possible. No vise of any sort was 
required on my passport. 

When I entered my compartment at Waterloo Station, 
I found I was to share it with a well-dressed lady of 
about fifty, evidently of high breeding. She was lean- 
ing out of the window and bidding good-bye to a hand- 
some, well-groomed man standing on the platform. I 
was struck by the purity of her English and her apparent 
culture and refinement. 

I had no conversation with her on the train, but at 
Folkestone, finding that she had more luggage than she 
could conveniently carry, I offered to bear her bundle 



6 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

of three or four umbrellas to the ship. She thanked me, 
and I took them in hand. 

As we were walking together along the dock toward 
the gangway, talking together, she and the porter carry- 
ing her bags were stopped by a British official and re- 
quested to step into the waiting-room. To my surprise, 
I was ordered to join them. In this room two or three 
officials went through her trunks and hand luggage most 
minutely. I was carrying a suit-case and a Gladstone 
bag. These too were examined, but as I had no contra- 
band they were speedily O. K.'d. 

An officer asked me who I was, where I was born, 
what was my business, and if I had a passport. I proved 
that I had by showing it to him. Then he questioned 
me closely as to the lady. 

" You were seen talking with this woman and we 
should like to learn what you know about her." 

" Why," said I, *' I never spoke a word to her in my 
Hfe until we stepped on to this dock." The official stared 
at me very hard for a minute or two. 

" I believe you are telling the truth. You may go 
aboard." 

Heaving a sigh of relief, I asked, " What's all the fuss 
about?" 

" That woman is from Schleswig-Holstein. We are 
certain that she is a German spy. She will not be per- 
mitted to leave the country." 

Heaving another sigh, even more grateful than the 
first, I grabbed my bags and scrambled aboard the 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 7 

steamer. Then and there I took a solemn oath that 
henceforth I would put the soft pedal on chivalry and 
engage no more attractive ladies in casual conversation. 
It was fortunate for me that the war was yet young. 
A year later, I should have been detained several days, 
at least, and possibly interned for the duration of the war. 



CHAPTER TWO 

Antwerp Under German Rule — " Umsteigen " — Berlin — The 
Elderly American Ladies and Their Patriotic Draperies. 

THE passage to Flushing, Holland, was without 
incident and accomplished in about five hours. 
At this period in the war no mines had been 
sown here and the route from Folkestone was direct. 
At Flushing I bought a ticket to Rotterdam with stop- 
over privilege at Rosendahl, Holland, which is the rail- 
way junction for Antwerp, twenty-five miles distant. 
The fall of the great Belgian seaport was then recent, 
and I wanted to have a glimpse of the city if I could. I 
spent the night in Rosendahl and started early in the 
morning for Antwerp. At Esschen, the Belgian frontier 
town, which had just been captured by the enemy, I had 
my first view of a German helmet. It was worn by the 
soldier who demanded our passports at the station, above 
which floated the German flag. It gave me an unpleas- 
ant thrill, for from the beginning of the war I had been 
a pronounced pro-Ally. 

At Antwerp the train was stopped and we were set 
down way out in the suburbs and forced to walk a 
quarter of a mile with our luggage to a gate in a stock- 
ade, which had been thrown across the road. Here the 

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A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 9 

German officer would not admit me to the city itself 
iintil my passport had been vised by the proper German 
authorities. Summoning a cab and driver, he packed me 
into the vehicle and gave the man some orders which I 
did not understand. After a three-mile drive I arrived 
at the office of the proper military authority, who 
promptly and courteously gave me the necessary vise. 

Going back to the German officer at the gate, I pre- 
sented my passport, but to my surprise he wouldn't even 
look at it, but waved me a " welcome to our city *' in curt 
German fashion. 

The last time I had visited Antwerp was on my wed- 
ding trip. Then it was happy, prosperous and gay. This 
time it gave me the shivers, it was so changed. Sud- 
denly I wished I had not come to the place, and I found 
myself far gone with nostalgia. Alone, among strangers 
whose tongue I could neither speak nor understand, with 
no legitimate business to excuse my presence, and with 
German troops milling around me, I felt like the victim 
in a herd of stampeded homed cattle. 

Craving the sight of a friend and the sound of an 
English word, I called on the American consul. He was 
out. My spirits dropped to below zero. However, I 
suddenly realized that I could write English, even if I 
dared not speak it. So I sat down in the consulate, 
pulled out a bunch of picture post-cards and wrote a 
line to every friend I could think of in the United States 
from the Gulf to the Lakes. This eased the tension a 
bit. Then I left them at the consulate to be forwarded, 



lo A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

which was a happy inspiration, as they would otherwise 
probably not have gone beyond the reach of the German 
authorities. 

Antwerp was like a morgue, swarming with hostile 
officials in gray uniforms and spiked helmets. All 
hotels, shops, and places of amusement were closed. 
The resident population had practically disappeared. 
Two weeks before, Antwerp had been gay, busy, normal, 
except for apprehension of the coming storm, which 
had come with a suddenness of destruction beyond all 
expectations. The defence had been heroic but brief. 
Today there was no one to talk to except cab-drivers 
and soldiers. Upon business, amusement, and peaceful 
home life had fallen the paralyzing hand of martial law. 

On my honeymoon to Antwerp, my wife and I had 
visited the Zoological Gardens, where, with absorbed in- 
terest, we had watched the keeper feeding the boa-con- 
strictors, and had suddenly become aware with horror 
that live rabbits formed the principal course of the meal. 
The wily reptile, the innocent, unconscious capers of the 
unsuspecting prey, then the thrust of neck and head, the 
swift closing of the enveloping maw and the instan- 
taneous disappearance of the poor, fuzzy little victim — 
all this had made an unforgettable impression. It all 
came back to me now, as I walked the streets of the 
German-vanquished city. What better parallel, I 
thought, to Germany's insatiate appetite for conquest 
could Nature supply than that swallowing of a weak and 
harmless Belgian hare by the sly, swift, cruel glutton? 




Copyright, International News Service 

RESIDENTIAL SECTION OF ANTWERP WRECKED BY BOMBARDMENT, 

OCTOBER, 19 1 4 




Copyright, International News Service 

THE PLACE VERTE, ANTWERP, SHOWING THE ROYAL HOTEL GUTTED, 

AND LEFT NEXT TO IT THE HOTEL DE l'eUROPE, ALSO 

PARTLY BURNED 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT ii 

Just outside of Antwerp were the evidences of war- 
fare — ^ trenches crisscrossing the fallows, and great 
sections of forest cut down to afford free play for the 
artillery. Before the heavy assaults of the enormous 
German siege guns, the city's fortresses had crumbled 
to dust. Modem methods of attack had made of im- 
pregnable defences a mockery and a byword. I took a 
drive round the city but found the damage negligible. 
Most of it had been confined to the southern portion, 
where I noticed that one large building had been entirely 
leveled. 

One day in Antwerp was enough for me. I put up at 
an inn called the Touilliers. On October 26th I pushed on 
to Rotterdam, where I spent two days at the Hotel Maas. 
Dutch sentiment I found to be about '* fifty-fifty " for 
and against the Germans. I believe the sentimental feel- 
ing was all for the Allies, but business self-interest 
prompted very practical concessions to Teutonic demands. 
Little Holland showed admirable pluck, however, in 
mobilizing her entire army and making forehanded ar- 
rangements in defending her soil in case of invasion. 
Wherever I traveled by rail, I saw forts, barbed wire 
entanglements, trenches and barricades. 

On the 29th, with little or no knowledge of German, 
but trusting wholly to my passport, I decided to make 
the nineteen-hour trip to the Kaiser's capital. In Rot- 
terdam I sought the German consul, whom I asked to 
vise my passport. He was very courteous and seemed 
pleased that I planned to go to Berlin, but my photo- 



12 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

graph must be attached to the passport. For a moment 
this seemed a real obstacle, for I was in a hurry. Then 
I thought of a way out. 

I once ran for selectman in the town where I live and, 
like all American candidates for office, I had had a lot 
of campaign cards printed, showing my picture and ex- 
horting all voters of good judgment to support my can- 
didacy at the polls. I happened to have one of these 
cards in my pocket. I showed it to the consul. He gave 
it long and careful scrutiny, attentively comparing the 
picture with myself. At last he pronounced it satisfac- 
tory, took a pair of scissors, cut the picture carefully 
from the card, pasted it to my passport and stamped the 
whole paper several times with ponderous German 
seals. 

I bought through passage to Berlin, taking as I sup- 
posed an entire compartment for the whole trip. I was 
determined on two things. First, I would, if possible, 
travel all the way to Berlin alone, so as not to have to 
talk to any of my fellow passengers. Second, if bad 
luck pursued me to the extent of any " native son " try- 
ing to engage me in conversation, I was going to be a 
deaf mute during all of that nineteen-hour journey. For 
well did I know that the uttering of a single English 
word was strictly " verboten," and I realized that if I 
inadvertently suffered any oral leakage I was likely to 
be arrested as an English spy. 

At first everything went well. The train service was 
excellent; the cars were comfortable; and I had a good 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 13 

sleep that night, in spite of the fact that I took it with all 
my clothes on. But in the early morning I had an un- 
pleasant surprise. The train had stopped at a town near 
the German frontier. I was roused from sleep by a guard 
who came to my door, opened it, and shouted : " Um- 
steigen, umsteigen ? " 

I yawned, stretched my legs, blinked my eyes and 
looked out of the door at the railway station. " Um- 
steigen ! " The word was familiar. I had certainly 
heard it before when I had traveled in Germany, but I 
could not recollect its meaning. Then it occurred to me 
that it was the name of the place. Not being particularly 
struck by the beauties of " Umsteigen " I relaxed and 
started to doze again. Once more the guard came to the 
door and again shouted " Umsteigen ! " He glared at me 
fiercely and pointed impatiently at the platform. It was 
plain that he was getting excited if not angry. I felt 
very uncomfortable. But I plucked up courage enough 
to grin foolishly and nod my head, hoping to intimate 
that the scenery was very pleasing but that it was no 
particular concern of mine. I was getting frightened 
because I couldn't speak German and I dared not speak 
English. 

Meanwhile friend Fritz continued to point at the plat- 
form and shout "Umsteigen!" Then at last it sud- 
denly dawned on me that " Umsteigen! " meant " change 
cars," and that I must get out! 

I tumbled out in a hurry, found a porter, gave him a 
mark, and shouted in his ear the one and only word I 



14 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

dared utter — "Berlin." The porter nodded and led 
me to a gate, where an officer examined my passport but 
did not even look at my luggage. I was put on another 
train, where I was assigned to a first class carriage. Alas ! 
This was not to be for my own exclusive use. To my 
dismay it was all cluttered up with German officers, each 
manly chest proudly adorned with an Iron Cross. Fine 
company for a Yankee pro-Ally! 

As soon as we got imder way I took the bull by the 
horns. 

" Sprechen Sie Amerikanisch ? " I boldly inquired. 

" Ja — ja," shouted two or three of the group, smiling 
good-naturedly. My modest experiment in promptly 
identifying myself as an American, rather than one of 
the hated English, worked perfectly. During the entire 
journey we were the best of friends. One young officer 
even advised me as to my hotel in Berlin and when we 
got there personally directed me to my quarters. 

Of course they were chiefly interested in finding out 
the sentiment of the United States in regard to the war, 
and this required all my tact in answering without giving 
offence or disappointment. 

At every station at which we stopped I noticed that 
a portion of the waiting-room had been set apart for the 
reception of wounded soldiers. We passed train after 
train filled with wounded from the fighting near Ypres. 
At Hanover, I counted thirteen cars so filled. From the 
floor of one compartment a stream of blood trickled down 
on the rails. These soldiers were the slightly wounded 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 15 

— those able to be conveyed into the interior. The more 
seriously wounded were first treated at the field hospital 
and later transferred to the base hospitals. 

It was evening when we pulled in at the Friedrich- 
strasse Station. As I drove in my cab to the Adlon 
Hotel on the Linden I was struck by the contrast be- 
tween Berlin and Lx)ndon. In the British capital all had 
been gay, cheerful, almost frivolous. Flags, pennants, 
posters and banners flew everywhere, in a riot of color 
and festivity. It was the London of " Derby Day " in 
spirit and appearance. Here in Berlin all was different — 
no flags, no laughing, cheering crowds, but a grim, de- 
termined, purposeful look in every face, to which mirth 
was ever a stranger. I made up my mind that here was 
a people who had either become soberly and practically 
patriotic, or else had fallen victims to the canker of 
Ambition and were well into the middle of their dream 
of World Conquest. 

Here one of the oddest sights I saw in Germany im- 
mediately confronted me. In the hotel oflice sat two 
typical elderly American spinsters. They were of the 
true " prunes and prisms type," utterly unacquainted with 
the significance of a world war and the tremendous 
events that were going on all about them. The minute 
I clapped an eye on them I knew they were not of Cos- 
mopolis. They were " at home " only in some such place 
as Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where the chief excitement of 
their placid lives was the weekly session of the Dorcas 
Society. But they did not appear excited. They wore 



i6 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

the calm of absolute self-reliance and the assurance of 
safety that comes with fifty years of blameless living. 

But they were prepared. Ah! Yes! They were 
thoroughly and impregnably shielded against the possible 
assaults of an enemy or the contemptuous glance of any 
alien, male or female. For across their chests, reaching 
from shoulder to shoulder, and covering them from neck 
to waist-line, were pinned the Stars and Stripes in all 
their silken splendor. Beneath the aegis of the Red, 
White and Blue, it was '' theirs not to question why," not 
even there in the hot-bed of Prussianism, under the very 
shadow of the War Lord's palace. 

I asked them how they happened to be still in Berlin, 
why they had not sailed for home at the outbreak of 
hostilities. One of the dear old ladies replied very 
calmly, " Well, we heard that they have dropped a lot of 
those horrid mines into the North Sea and we didn't 
think it quite safe to sail now, but we are going home 
just as soon as the war is over. I don't think it will 
last more than a month or two longer, do you ? " 

I couldn't bear to undeceive the trusting creature, and, 
leaving my private opinion as to the duration of the war 
unuttered, I excused myself and faded to my room — 
to laugh. 



CHAPTER THREE 

Berlin — Otto Werner, My Beau Brummel Cicerone — Arrested 
for Talking to British Prisoners — I Call for "The Mar- 
seillaise." 

BRIGHT and early next morning the proprietor 
sent word to me that the Commissionnaire, 
whose services I had requested the night before, 
awaited my pleasure in the office. On coming down, my 
attention was called to a most august personage who was 
making a profound obeisance in my general direction. 
He was dressed in a cutaway coat, fancy waistcoat, care- 
fully pressed trousers, shining boots and white spats, and 
he carried a high hat, gloves, and a walking-stick. Tall 
and bearded, he was so impressive-looking that I was sure 
the proprietor had made a mistake, until the gentleman, 
introducing himself as Herr Otto Werner, assured me 
that he was at my service to pilot me whithersoever I 
wished. The only flaw in Otto's equipment was his Eng- 
lish. That was execrable. But his manners, his knowl- 
edge of the city, his loyalty and good humor were " all 
to the good." 

After breakfast, Werner and I took a taxicab and 
were driven to a great plain beyond Charlottenburg, 
about ten miles from Berlin. I wanted to see the French, 

17 



i8 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

Russian and British prisoners — the latter numbering, 
perhaps, four or five thousand. 

As we neared the encampment I noticed an enormous 
number of tents, some of them almost as large as our 
circus tents. These were located along each side of the 
road, near which, but behind barbed wire enclosures, 
were sauntering all kinds and conditions of prisoners — 
Cossacks in their astrakhan caps, French soldiers in their 
antiquated blue coats and red trousers, and at last, on 
the road itself, a motley crew, numbering perhaps a hun- 
dred, who carried pickaxes and shovels, whose uniforms 
were very dirty and muddy, and quite indistinguishable 
as to nationality. I saw only that the men were pitiably 
without benefit of razors, and that they shambled along 
with little or no show of pride or dignity. 

" Who are they? " I asked Werner. 

" British soldiers," said he. 

Just then we came up to them. Something made me 
forget the danger of using my native tongue, which had 
so obsessed me while I was traveling to Berlin. I leaned 
out of the taxi and shouted : 

" How are you, boys ? It's a long way to Tipperary. 
Good luck to you! " 

Instantly from I know not where a police official 
jumped on the running-board of our machine, evidently 
quite beside himself with rage. In the most unprintable 
language — and to me untranslatable, but I know it was 
unprintable — he berated me roundly. Then he ordered 
the driver to take us to the Commandant's office, which 




Copyright, Int^ ^ i i ■. il News Service 

GERMAN RECRUITS IN BERLIN, LEAVING FOR THE FRONT, I914 




IvOndon Graphic, 1914 

BRITISH PRISONERS NEAR CHARLOTTENBURG 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 19 

we reached half a mile further on, the genial policeman 
accompanying us. When we were ushered into this 
building, I explained in English to the stern-looking offi- 
cial that I had meant no offence in my casual hailing of 
the English '* Tommies." My testimony was loyally cor- 
roborated by Werner, but it was no use. The official 
ordered us sent to Berlin immediately and delegated an 
officer to sit at my side and see that we got there. As 
the latter took his place in the car, I realized that I was 
a prisoner. I thought longingly of my comfortable home 
in the suburbs of Boston and wished I were there. 

The officer turned out to be a very good sort. He 
chatted with us, and about half way in, stopped the 
machine at a roadside cafe. 

" Let's have some beer and cigars," said he. This 
sounded so inviting we all got out, went inside, and gave 
our orders to the waiter. 

Thinking that I was accepting the hospitality of the 
Kaiser, I ordered a seidel of the finest brew in the house, 
and also the best imported cigar they had to offer. 

As I sipped my beer and watched the smoke-rings float 
lazily out into the autumn sunshine, I mused upon the 
swift changes of fate. I had started the journey from 
the Commandant's office with my heart full of venom 
for this horrible jailer. Now I felt myself glowing with 
love for all mankind, especially for this kind and hos- 
pitable German officer who was so solicitous for my 
comfort. 

" Fine fellows, these Germans, after all," I thought. 



20 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

" Generous, free with their money, hospitable and 
thoughtful." In fact, I exhausted all the Jaudatory 
adjectives I could think of in properly classifying him. I 
had just decided to ask him what his first name was 
when I woke up. 

In front of me lay the bill where it had been trucu- 
lently thrown by the coarse, unfeeling waiter. As I 
blinked wonderingly at it, a loud laugh went up from 
every one in the room. It was evident that I was 
" stuck." I flung twenty marks on the table and immedi- 
ately revised my opinion of German soldiers as hosts. 

In Berlin we reached a gloomy building in the heart 
of the city, where we were arraigned before a solemn, 
white-haired magistrate in civilian dress. After he had 
heard the soldier's story he asked me in English what I 
had said. I repeated my salutation, word for word. I 
stoutly asserted that it was wholly through ignorance of 
the rules that I had ventured to address the soldiers. 
Again Werner backed me up loyally. 

The magistrate seemed satisfied with our stories, but 
the word '' Tipperary " bothered him. Nor could 
Werner help me out now ; he knew its meaning no more 
than the judge. I explained that it was a well-known 
music hall song that was popular with the British soldiers 
and had even penetrated to America. Still the magis- 
trate balked; he looked incredulous. There was some- 
thing secret and sinister about the word. 

" Write it out," said he, pushing a paper and pencil 
in my direction. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 21 

With trembling fingers I began to write. I remember 
particularly that I hesitated for a minute, wondering 
whether there were one or two p's in " Tipperary." 
My hesitation made the magistrate look at the word very 
suspiciously. I am sure that he thought it a word in 
some secret code. 

With the paper in his hand the magistrate retired, 
leaving a soldier to guard us. For half an hour I 
squirmed on the mental grill, wondering what was to 
befall me. 

At the end of that time the official returned, told me 
he had telephoned to my hotel and found that I was all 
right, and that he had decided to release me. But he did 
not let me go without sternly reminding me that I had 
committed a very serious offence in speaking to prison- 
ers without permission, an offence punishable by im- 
prisonment. He admonished me never to do suCh a fool- 
ish thing again. However, he was quite convinced of 
my innocence in this instance. Then he told me he was 
anxious that my stay in Berlin should be as pleasant as 
possible and to that end he begged leave to offer me, for 
the entire duration of my visit, the free use of an 
automobile ! 

Bewildered, I stammered my thanks and a polite decli- 
nation. Involuntarily I thought of the invitation to par- 
take of beer and cigars on the way in from Charlotten- 
burg. But the judge's invitation I believe was genuine. 
I afterwards attributed his kind offer to the fact that 
Germany, thus early in the war, was making a systematic 



22 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

effort to win American sympathy and to that end was 
doing everything possible to please whatever Americans 
happened to be traveling in the country. For instance, 
only three times in Germany was I required to show my 
passport — once on entering, and once on leaving the 
frontier, and once at my hotel in Berlin. My luggage 
was never examined nor even opened. American citizen- 
ship was apparently an open sesame. 

Public opinion in Berlin is not spontaneous — a crea- 
tion of the people — but is manufactured by the Prussian 
military system and disseminated through the controlled 
press. The whims of the autocrats, therefore, determine 
the mental viewpoint of the masses. 

Throughout Berlin I found many evidences of anti- 
Ally sentiment. All signs in French and English had 
been removed; bills of fare were entirely in the German 
language; the famous Cafe Picadilly — similar to the 
Moulin Rouge in Paris — had been changed overnight 
to the " Cafe Vaterland." 

It was at this place that I made my second unfortunate 
" break." One night I went to the '' Vaterland " with 
two or three officers with whom I had become well 
acquainted. We had a very good dinner ; in fact, I think 
the dinner was too good. At any rate, after we had fin- 
ished and the band had played some stirring patriotic 
airs, I suddenly turned to one of my companions and in 
a loud voice made the brilliant suggestion — 

" Ask them to play the ' Marseillaise.' " 

" Hush," said he, raising his forefinger. The chap 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 23 

on the other side of me jumped to his feet and clapped 
his hand over my mouth. Thus forcibly reminded of 
my bad taste in titles, I apologized profusely and made 
another good resolution — that until I was on my 
steamer, homeward bound for America, I would suggest 
no tunes to be played in public. 



CHAPTER FOUR 

Berlin — Alleged Allied Atrocities — Potsdam and Sans Souci — 
Essen — "A Boston American." 

TASKED Werner one day if he had ever heard of any 
atrocities having been committed by the AlHes. He 
said that at one of the hospitals were eight soldiers 
who had had their ears cut off and their eyes gonged out 
by French Turcos. I asked him to take me to the hos- 
pital, v^rhich he did. The officials put me off until the next 
day. I again called and was put off until the afternoon. 
After making three trips without succeeding in seeing the 
alleged victims I made up my mind that they did not 
exist. Surely if Germany had any such exhibits it was 
wholly to her interest to let an American see them and 
so report on his return to America, as a necessary offset 
to the stories of German atrocities being put out by the 
Allies. But though I could find no evidence that the 
Turcos committed atrocities, it was evident that they 
were relentless fighters. In talking with German soldiers 
through my guide I found that the enemies they most 
feared were the Turcos and the Cossacks, who are known 
as " terrors with the cold steel," cutting and slashing 
most viciously with sabres and bayonets. 

As to the famous Iron Cross, I must say it was every- 
where in evidence. The French and English con- 

24 



R 



^v 




^ ^ 




lOuiii'np aon mu i Jtnoijn 




h ',-ar ntcM bui 



SIX POST-CARDS, BERLIN, NOVEMBER, I914 
Upper left-hand corner — card of Otto Werner. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 25 

temptuously claim that these crosses are sent by the 
wagon-load to the front and are distributed among the 
men at so much apiece. Certainly Berlin was full of 
them. It seemed as though nearly every other soldier 
was wearing one. One day I happened upon a crowd 
in the Linden. About a young chap of fifteen were 
grouped soldiers and civilians, clapping the boy on the 
back, shaking his hand, and singing his praises. The 
little fellow was wearing full military uniform, to the 
coat of which was pinned an Iron Cross. On inquiry, 
I found that he had recently won it through his courage 
in creeping forward one night beyond the German 
trenches and locating the position of a Russian battery. 

Another sign of war was the large number of cap- 
tured machine guns grouped in the public squares, their 
battered and bullet-pierced shields showing that they had 
received terrible punishment at German hands before 
they had become German property. Each gun bore a 
placard naming the place where it was captured — 
" Liege,'* " Namur," " Chaderoi," " Mons," etc. 

Yet in some ways Berlin was not so warlike as I had 
expected to find it. I noticed the utter absence of mourn- 
ing here. In spite of the tremendous losses, the German 
government had forbidden the women to wear crepe, 
shrewdly calculating that the sight of too much black 
would have a depressing effect upon the people. Nor 
was money difficult to procure, as I had been led to 
believe in London, where they told me that I couldn't 
possibly draw on my letter of credit in Berlin. But when 



26 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

I went to my bankers — Mendelssohn and Company — 
they informed me that I could draw all I pleased. " You 
can have British gold if you want it," said the clerk. 

I was greatly surprised at the freedom with which I 
was permitted to visit Potsdam and Sans Souci, the 
Kaiser's summer home, about twenty-five miles from 
Berlin. Here the grounds had been given over to the 
use of recruits, who were drilling night and day. The 
trip to Potsdam, by the way, could be made in peace 
times in a Zeppelin at a moderate price, but at the out- 
break of war all Zeppelins were, of course, comman- 
deered for national service. Werner and I entered the 
gates at Potsdam without the slightest trouble. The 
sentry on duty did not question or examine me, and for 
several hours I strolled through the palace, entering any 
of the rooms I wished, and was even conducted into the 
private burial vaults where sleep the ancient Prussian 
kings. 

It was at Potsdam that I made my final oratorical 
"faux pas/' As I stood there watching the gray-uni- 
formed recruits moving like automatons at the sound of 
" their master's voice " — the commanding officer — I 
blurted out: 

" Werner, I believe the German military system is all 
wrong." 

No sooner had I spoken than I regretted it. A look 
of positive pain flashed across his face, and he muttered 
between his closed teeth, " You do not understand us." 
Up to this time he had believed me even more than a 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT ^^ 

neutral, almost a pro-German, so careful had I been to 
praise ever)^hing German that I conscientiously could. 
This estimate of me he had even passed on to the pro- 
prietor of the hotel, who had surprised me one day by 
offering to get me free passage to Vienna and return, 
probably in hopes that I would thereby gather even more 
material for a strong pro-German utterance when I should 
return to America. 

This job of holding my unruly pro-Ally tongue in 
this Teutonic environment was getting unbearable; so 
after my disagreement with Werner I decided to leave. 
The next day I engaged a compartment for Rotterdam 
and brought my nine-days tour of Germany to a close 
on the evening of November 7th. 

In leaving Berlin I carried away with me two distinct 
impressions. The first was the super-efficiency of the 
Germans. Everything was going like clockwork. All 
the shops were open. People were in a normal frame 
of mind and the activities everywhere were identical 
with those of peace times, with this exception, that many 
wounded soldiers with hands or legs or heads bandaged 
were hobbling about the streets. The second impression 
was the absolute unity of the whole German people in 
the cause of the Kaiser. For this they showed an en- 
thusiasm and a determination to win that impressed me 
deeply. In fact, as a result of my visit to Germany I 
made bold, in my own home town a few weeks later, to 
prophesy that the war would last at least three years. 
But, like many another prophet, I was laughed to scorn. 



28 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

The return trip to Holland was by a slightly different 
route, which brought me through Essen, the site of the 
world-famous Krupp Works. To guard against espio- 
nage the train crew pulled down the window curtains, but 
I peeked out, nevertheless. The place was a beehive of 
industry — scores of chimneys belching forth their black 
smoke, enormous train-loads of ammunition and weapons, 
hundreds of workmen darting to and fro — in short, all 
the feverish activity peculiar to any nation's arsenal in 
time of war. I noticed, too, that preparations had been 
taken to guard the Works from hostile intrusion both 
by land and sky. Armed soldiers patrolled the entrances 
to the Works, and anti-aircraft guns were posted on the 
roofs to discourage Allied airplanes from dropping 
bombs. 

At the frontier, while I was answering a few questions, 
this one was sprung on me : 

" Are you a German-American or an English-Ameri- 
can ? " asked my inquisitor. 

I pondered a moment, then replied : 

" I, sir, am a Boston American ! " 

Whereupon the Hun in the helmet bowed gravely and 
let me pass. Gleefully I jumped into my compartment, 
the train started, and a moment later I had exchanged the 
chills and fevers of a hostile land for the genial sunshine 
of the Dutch ; for dikes, Edam cheese and tulips. 



CHAPTER FIVE 

Holland — Hotchkiss, the Incomparable — London — Allen Joins 
Us With His Car, " The Dreadnaught " — Boulogne — Havre 
— The Colonel's Story of What Happened at Mons — Two 
Peasant Women Ride With Us. 

AT Flushing I found the Princess Juliana ready to 
sail for Folkestone, but at the ticket office I 
was told that everything had been sold weeks 
before and that not another passenger could be taken. 

I strolled to the gangway. Although the boat was not 
to start for some time, I found it loaded to the rails. 
Most of the passengers were Belgian refugees, fleeing 
to England for the food and raiment which they so sorely 
needed. All around me were hundreds of other Belgians 
imploring passage even more clamorously than myself. 
The man at the gangway told me I probably could not 
get passage for a week. 

Presently I overheard a man speak in English to the 
gangway official, telling him that he had no ticket, but 
was perfectly willing to buy one and that he must be 
allowed to proceed to England on this boat. He was 
refused. 

As he turned away, I stepped up to him and intro- 
duced myself. He presented his card, which read : " Ed- 
win B. Hotchkiss, Engineer, Brussels." 

29 



30 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

In this fashion began an acquaintance which lasted for 
nearly a month, and which brought me into mtimate daily 
contact with one of the most capable and resourceful 
gentlemen whom it has ever been my pleasure to meet. 
After hearing my brief story, Mr. Hotchkiss said : 

" Wait here. I'll fix it for both of us." 

As he turned away I noticed that he was a man about 
fifty years old, stockily built, and rather distinguished- 
looking. I had noticed that in speaking to the steamboat 
officials he had that air of authority which usually 
achieves the object desired and will not be denied. In 
our brief conversation it developed that he was a kins- 
man of the famous Hotchkiss family, inventors and 
manufacturers of the guns of that name; that he had 
been in business in Brussels for twenty-five years and 
that his relations with the Belgian government were very 
close. 

A few minutes before midnight he reappeared and 
nonchalantly handed me not only a passage ticket but a 
stateroom reservation for us both. How he had man- 
aged it I never knew. This was only the first of many 
instances of his marvelous resourcefulness. 

During the ten-hours sail to Folkestone I learned that 
Mr. Hotchkiss had, in his youth, been something of a 
soldier of fortune; that once he had enlisted with the 
British forces in Canada and had been wounded in RieFs 
Rebellion. A fine, up-standing, red-blooded, two-fisted 
man he was, with all the inherent tact and diplomacy so 
necessary for smoothing the way in continental Europe. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 31 

The trip to Folkestone occupied twice as much time as 
it had taken us to come over. During my stay in Beriin 
several new mine fields had been laid and the Channel 
had to be traversed with great caution. Once while I was 
on deck a dark object loomed just ahead. The helmsman 
whirled the wheel and we escaped it only by inches. It 
v^as a mine. In the early morning I noticed smoke in 
the direction of Nieuport and asked Hotchkiss what it 
meant. 

*' They're fighting over there, and the battle is a big 
one," said he. " Can't you hear the guns? " 

I strained my ears and heard faint detonations. Later 
I learned that the Prussian Guards were making a des- 
perate but vain attempt to reach the Channel ports. I 
believe this battle is known as the Battle of Ypres. 

At Folkestone we took the train direct to London and 
I was once again at Morley's Hotel. During the passage 
across the Channel I had prevailed upon Hotchkiss to 
take me with him to Havre arid Calais, where he had busi- 
ness. The one thing necessary, however, was a motor- 
car. Train service was slow and uncertain, but with a 
machine one became a master of transportation and could 
go and come whenever he liked. So we went on a still 
hunt for a car. It was a very difficult task to find any 
one who would be willing to rent a machine without our 
putting up its full value in cash before starting. This 
was because of the grave probability of its being com- 
mandeered as soon as we landed on French soil. 

Finally we ran across A. J. Allen, a tall, clean-cut, 



32 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

athletic Londoner, about thirty-five years old, who owned 
a machine and in whom, luckily, the spirit of adventure 
was not dead. His clear blue eyes betokened honesty 
and courage. In short order we made a contract with 
him to rent us his car and his own services for seven 
pounds a day and all expenses and repair bills. Although 
he had a wife and two children, he was quite willing to 
jeopardize his splendid Mercedes limousine — a willing- 
ness which was a Godsend to us. I am convinced that 
the remuneration he was to receive for taking this trip 
was a secondary consideration. It was plain that he was 
himself bitten by the wanderlust. Later he gallantly 
offered his services to his country, and is now superin- 
tending in London the care and repair of cars and motor- 
trucks in use by the government in that city. 

Before leaving for France we viewed the parade inci- 
dent to Lord Mayor's Day, November 9th, from the 
window of my hotel. In our party were Lieutenant Mor- 
rison, whom I met in London a year later, and a Doctor 
Beavis, a noted golf-player, who has appeared in several 
tournaments in this country, and who was about to start 
for the Belgian Field Hospital at Furnes in Flanders. 
The Doctor laughingly invited us to call on him if we 
ever got to Fumes, adding, ''Of course you'll never get 
there!" But in this he was mistaken, for eleven days 
later we were shaking hands with him over one of the 
hospital cots in that interesting town. 

In the Lord Mayor's parade I noticed the regular, the 
territorial, and the colonial troops, including New Zea- 










o\ 



<l**^ 




*^ 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 33 

landers and Canadians. None of these had yet been to 
the front, but were being trained at SaHsbury Plain. I 
was again struck by the gay and buoyant spirits of the 
people, who were hurrahing and laughing and treating 
the whole war as an outdoor sport. 

On the 1 2th of November three men in a motor-car 
bowled on to the deck of the Channel steamer. Two 
minutes later, the ship being under way, the Three 
Musketeers repaired to the smoking-room, where they 
drank success to their new Goddess, La Belle France, 
their forty-horse-power machine, " The Dreadnaught," 
and to the Great Adventure. Our very rough passage 
of three hours to Boulogne I noticed was shared by Gen- 
eral Smith-Dorrien, second to General French in com- 
mand of the British forces. 

At Boulogne our passports were supplemented by a 
** Permis de Circuler par Vehicule Automobile B. No. 
1 04 1 " to Havre, and signed by the Commanding Gen- 
eral of the Department of the North. This slip of blue 
paper proved afterwards indispensable. Every one 
wanted to see the permis but hardly any one ever asked 
to see our passports. This formality over, we adorned 
the front of the " Dreadnaught " with a Belgian flag on 
the right side and the American flag on the left. Later, 
on our way to Paris, we replaced the Belgian flag with a 
French emblem, but Old Glory was never taken down 
during the entire trip. 

We were now fairly and frankly in the War Zone. 
Martial law prevailed. The town was alive with British 



34 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

soldiers. Some one told me there were a hundred and 
fifty thousand in this vicinity. Transports were con- 
stantly arriving and adding to the number. Here in 
Boulogne I first heard " Tipperary " sung by the British 
troops. It gave me a thrill. And during our stay here 
we saw the body of Lord Roberts being escorted by a 
large troop of soldiers to the boat for interment in 
England. 

One of the first things we did was to lay in a large 
supply of cigarettes — fully a bushel and a half of them 
— for whatever the blue permis could not accomplish, the 
offer of a smoke to a tobacco-hungry soldier was bound 
to achieve. Although they were Turkish cigarettes, their 
hostile name did not prevent the recipient from enjoying 
them to the utmost. Throughout the trip, among Belgian 
refugees, English " Tommies," French " Gastons," Afri- 
can Turcos, and Indian Sikhs, these tiny Turkish emis- 
saries overcame all opposition and instantly evoked a 
genial glow among those who should have been enemies. 

Hotchkiss having urgent business with the Belgian 
government, on the 13th of November we pointed the 
nose of the " Dreadnaught " toward Havre, one hun- 
dred and fifty miles to the southwest, where, in a suburb 
of that city, Sainte Adresse, had been located the Bel- 
gian capital, since shortly after the occupation of Brus- 
sels by the Germans. That night we put up at Abbeville, 
fifty miles from Boulogne, resuming our journey bright 
and early the next day. We made Havre by evening and 
took rooms at the Hotel Metropole on the Boulevard 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 35 

Strasbourg. Like Boulogne, Havre was full of British 
soldiers, most of whom were drilling on the plateau back 
of Sainte Adresse. While Hotchkiss busied himself 
with the officials, Allen and I amused ourselves talking 
to the British '* Tommies " and French " Gastons." 
These latter were uniformly serious, dogged and deter- 
mined. The gravity of the war had come home to them 
painfully, and they were fully a year ahead of the Brit- 
ish in their comprehension of the full meaning of this 
titanic conflict. 

While at Havre I had an interesting talk with an Eng- 
lish colonel who had fought at Mons, where the Allies 
were so badly beaten. 

'* There were eighty thousand British at Mons," said 
he, " and we had no idea the Germans were near by. 
Suddenly and without warning we were attacked by an 
enormous mass of them. They appeared in the early 
morning, billowing across the plain like a swift, gray 
fog. In close, massed formation they fell upon our wire 
entanglements and our guns mowed them down in wind- 
rows. But for every man that fell it seemed as though 
two took his place. In spite of all we could do, we were 
compelled to retreat, and retreat hastily. Yet during this 
hurried falling back we didn't lose a gun, although 
thousands of lives were lost. 

" Later we discovered a terrible mistake had been 
made. General French had sent a peremptory dispatch 
summoning a French army corps near by to support 
him. But this support never reached us, and I under- 



36 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

stand the reason was that the French general command- 
ing this corps had a German wife, who prevailed on him 
to delay sending reinforcements until it was too late to 
save the British. When this was discovered, the French 
general and his wife were both shot." 

After two days we once more headed back towards the 
north-east, this time for Calais, where Hotchkiss had 
business. We broke the journey by again spending the 
night at Abbeville. 

The whole region from Havre to Flanders was in the 
War Zone, so that we were continually stopped by 
French patrols who, with rifle at " port arms," stood in 
the road and shouted " Halte ! " Then we would show 
our permis, which Hotchkiss had now had stamped at 
Havre with the necessary permission to gO' as far as 
Calais and Dunkirk. Although we were stopped fully 
a hundred and fifty times while in France, the patrols 
showed every courtesy. Invariably we would pass out 
a few cigarettes, which always evoked a grateful " Merci, 
monsieur." 

From Abbeville to Calais, a seventy-five mile run, the 
roads were alive with British in khaki, French soldiers in 
their blue coats and red trousers — soon to be changed 
to a less conspicuous uniform — black Senegalese and 
Turcos, turbaned Sikhs, and gray armored automobiles 
bristling with weapons. All along the way trenches had 
been dug; in fact they had been prepared as far west 
as Havre, together with barbed wire entanglements, 
barricades, and other obstacles. Here and there whole 




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*- v^. *l ^4 f "^ 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 37 

forests had been cut down, and in some villages certain 
portions had been leveled, to allow free play for the artil- 
lery. This was evidence that the Allies were preparing 
for a vigorous defence in case the Germans should man- 
age to push through the lines which were then holding 
them. 

Every few kilometers along the road barricades made 
of timber, earth and sand-bags overlapped one another 
in such fashion as to make it necessary for the car to 
describe a letter S in getting by. One afternoon at dusk, 
near Etaples, we were breezing along at fifty miles an 
hour when suddenly one of these barricades loomed 
directly in front. Not having time to shut off the power 
and apply the brakes, Allen made his S on two wheels, 
and escaped a serious collision only by a hair's breadth. 

The many towns and villages through which we passed 
brought home to us much of the horror of warfare. 
They were all practically deserted; only a handful of 
old men, women and children was to be seen in any of 
them. Nearly all of the shops were closed. Business 
was at a standstill. But one of the pleasant features of 
the journey was the way the small boys received us. 
They would look hard at the American flag, then break 
into a smile and a cheer, and raise their hands to their 
caps in true military salute. 

Just outside of Boulogne we overtook two peasants, 
one a middle-aged woman and the other her daughter, a 
girl of about nineteen. We stopped the car and asked 
them where they were going. As they turned to reply, 



38 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

there was a look of real terror in their faces. For a 
moment they did not speak. Then Hotchkiss, in his 
kindliest tones, explained in French who we were and 
where we were going, and told them that we should be 
very glad to help them on their way. Gradually the un- 
named terror faded from their eyes. The older woman 
said they were bound for Calais, fifteen miles away. 
After a little more talk, they timidly consented to accept 
our proffer of assistance and got into the car. As the 
machine gathered speed the look of amazement and pleas- 
ure on their faces w^ll repaid us for our invitation. It 
was evident that they had never before ridden in an 
automobile. It was equally plain that we were not ex- 
actly the kind of male creatures that had heretofore 
figured in their lives. Gradually they grew more at ease 
and chatted freely. The husband and son of the older 
woman were in the army, and the women had left their 
home in the country in order to be nearer their " men 
folks " at Calais. As we set them down at journey's 
end, about seven o'clock that evening, they thanked us 
profusely, tears of gratitude blinding their eyes. And I 
believe that Northern France now shelters at least two 
staunch and ardent female partisans of Uncle Sam. 



CHAPTER SIX 

Calais — German Airplane Threatens — Dunkirk — Belgian Boy 
Heroes — Airplane Drops Bombs, Killing Others While We 
Sleep — Furnes — Commandant Warns of Danger. 

CALAIS was so full of British soldiers and Bel- 
gian refugees that there wasn't hotel room to 
be had. After we had gone the rounds we 
decided to spend the night in the car, and about ten o'clock 
drew up by the curbstone on one of the principal streets. 
The '' Invincible Three," as Hotchkiss called us, had 
just composed themselves for an uncomfortable night's 
sleep when a head was poked into the window and a 
quiet voice said: 

" Mr. Hotchkiss, your face seems familiar to me." 
Hotchkiss jumped up with a start, then leaped to the 
sidewalk and embraced the young man who had spoken. 
It was Harold, his son. The young man had been 
attracted by the sight of the American flag on the car, 
and was prompted to investigate. It seems that he had 
recently come to Calais from Nancy, where he lived, 
and was now quartered with his wife at one of the small 
hotels, the Hotel de Famille, 21 Rue de la Tete d'Or. 
Thither he conducted us, where we were grateful enough 
to find one unoccupied room containing one bed. The 
accommodation was not over ample, but for two nights 

39 



40 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

we were glad to sleep three in a bed in preference to 
the doubtful comfort of the motor-car. 

The next morning I tried to get some money at the 
Credit Lyonnais on my letter of credit. I was told that 
everything was under martial law and that no funds 
would be forthcoming. The resourceful Hotchkiss at 
once had the bank telegraph the Minister of War in 
Paris for permission to pay me whatever I required, but 
I could not expect a reply inside of two or three days. 
That, however, was better than I could have done for 
myself. 

That afternoon, thanks to the efforts of Hotchkiss, 
we were permitted to visit the government ammunition 
works. Here a large gang of workmen was engaged in 
repairing old rifles and larger weapons which had been 
used up in the trenches. After going through the shops 
we sauntered into the yard, which was crammed with 
mortars, howitzers and machine guns. Our guide was 
just pointing out one of the largest pieces when suddenly 
a German airplane shot into view from the east. At first 
it was at a great height, but soon it came nearer, swoop- 
ing down on us until it was only six or seven hundred 
feet overhead. 

" It's a German plane. Look out for yourselves,'' 
shouted the guide. 

I thought of bombs and instantly picked out the near- 
est and largest cannon for my own particular use in case 
anything should drop. 

Just then I heard a great whirring directly back of 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 41 

us. As I turned, there shot into the air three French 
airplanes which headed for the German at full speed. 
The enemy immediately turned tail and fled. He neither 
dropped a bomb nor fired a shot. Possibly he was 
merely on a scouting expedition. 

On this occasion, in peaceful surroundings, in a normal 
frame of mind, unfortified for adventure, I was really 
scared. Yet later at Ypres, moving in the very midst 
of alarms and of actual danger, with nerves automatically 
steeled against whatever might befall, I found myself 
quite unperturbed. 

The airplane seemed to stir Hotchkiss's love of ad- 
venture. He spoke up : 

" Austin, do you and Allen want to hear the music ? " 

I knew what he meant and assented. And, in spite 
of the fact that he stood in great danger of having his 
car commandeered at the front, Allen was equally keen 
to push on to the firing line. 

Our permis had been extended to cover Dunkirk and 
return. Even Hotchkiss could not prevail upon the 
officials to allow us to go further. However, he coolly 
said to me, "We'll get to the firing line yet, old boy; 
leave it to me." And so firm was my faith now in his 
marvelous resourcefulness that I hadn't a doubt he would 
make good. 

The next day, the 19th of November, we decided to 
start for Dunkirk, twenty-nine miles away, our party 
the larger by two; for Harold Hotchkiss had decided 
to go along with us, and also George Milner, the sixteen- 



42 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

year-old son of the American consul at Calais, a plucky- 
chap and cool. 

Our short trip to Dunkirk, which was reached in the 
evening, was full of incident. Repeatedly we gave sol- 
diers a lift. Among them was a Belgian boy of thirteen, 
an undersized little chap, with an old man's face, who 
wore the uniform of a boy scout and carried a bandolier 
full of cartridges. We were astounded to learn that he 
had come through the fighting at Liege, Namur and 
Antwerp unscathed and that he was the very boy who, 
single-handed, had slain the Prince of Lippe at Liege. 

The Prince, a man of forty-eight, riding alone near 
Liege, came upon the boy crossing a country estate. 
He seized the youngster and demanded that he give up 
the dispatches he was carrying. The boy's answer was 
a shot from his revolver. The Prince fell, mortally 
wounded. The boy escaped. For this deed the little 
chap received a medal of honor from his government. 
In a spirit of mingled pride and modesty, he showed us 
the medal. 

Later we picked up Fernand Eymal, nineteen, another 
Belgian. He had been in the same battles as his younger 
compatriot, but had not escaped injury. His face and 
forehead showed where once the shrapnel had found 
him, and rifle wounds had twice left lifelong scars. He 
told us how his sister, Antoinette, sixteen years old, 
had left Liege and trudged all the way to Antwerp to 
be near him after he had been ordered to the defence 
of that city. Fernand had been in the motor-cycle serv- 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 43 

ice and had just been promoted to the' Aviation Corps, in 
which his father was serving. 

Both these boys were full of enthusiasm and eager to 
get to the firing line again. Their attitude typified Bel- 
gium. Of all the nationalities I encountered, none seemed 
as keen for a " go '' at the enemy as the subjects of 
King Albert. 

Arriving at Dunkirk, close to the Belgian line, we made 
a search for rooms and were finally accommodated at a 
small inn called the ** Brasserie Lilloise " in the " Place 
de la Gare." It was an humble edifice, part restaurant, 
part lodging-house, part bar. As we ate our supper we 
talked with the genial host, Louis Castelan. He said 
that while the heavy artillery at the front was in action, 
it could plainly be heard in Dunkirk; also that the day 
before a bomb from an aviator had fallen on a train 
three kilometers away, killing thirty or forty people. He 
told us that all the regular hotels in Dunkirk had been 
turned into asylums for refugees and hospitals for the 
wounded. 

After supper Hotchkiss went to the Commandant's 
ofiice to have our permis extended to include Furnes and 
Ypres. Although the officer was a personal friend of 
Hotchkiss he declined to give his official permission, but 
Hotchkiss succeeded in obtaining his oral leave to depart, 
in these significant words : 

** Go as far as you like, old man, and may God have 
mercy on your soul ! " 

We felt extremely fortunate to get even a word-of- 



44 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

mouth permission to pass beyond Dunkirk. There were 
a number of newspaper correspondents in Dunkirk who, 
hopelessly marooned, would have given a year's salary 
for what we, mere interlopers, had succeeded in cork- 
screwing out of the Commandant. 

It was cold that night and we turned in early. We 
were all tired, and so we tucked ourselves into lowly cots 
and slept as soundly as hoboes in a haystack. How 
soundly, how thoroughly, how blissfully we didn't realize 
until the next morning. 

Coming into the tap-room before daybreak, we heard 
excited voices. The natives were discussing the hap- 
penings of the previous night. Imagine the shock when 
we heard that at about half -past eleven a belligerent 
aviator had flown over the town and dropped a decidedly 
un-neutral bomb into the street only a few score feet 
from where we slept. It had killed one man and 
wounded five others. Yet not one of our party had 
heard anything. We hadn't even dreamed that German 
high society had dropped in during the night and left 
cards. 

After thanking our lucky stars that the bomb had not 
fallen on us, we paid our bill and left before breakfast. 
This was the 20th day of November, 191 4. It was 
destined to be the most exciting of my life. 

Our destination was Furnes, the Belgian supply base 
twelve miles away. It was cold. Snow had fallen dur- 
ing the night and the ground was white. The road 
teemed with traffic. Going our way, bound for the front, 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 45 

were again soldiers of all nationalities, as we had seen 
them between Abbeville and Calais — Turcos, Sikhs, 
Senegalese, French, Britons, and Belgians; big motor- 
trucks were lumbering on, laden with ammunition and 
supplies; armored passenger-cars hurried past us; and 
motor-cyclists whizzed by with dispatches. 

Coming towards us was another kind of procession — 
an endless gray thread of motor-ambulances, showing a 
large red cross on either side, carrying the wounded to 
the base hospitals. Also there was a stream of Belgian 
refugees, with drawn, dulled faces, carrying all their 
earthly goods on their backs, or trundling them labori- 
ously before them in push-carts or wheelbarrows. 

Along the road we encountered almost numberless 
overlapping street barricades, with patrols at each, who 
always halted us, examined our credentials, and accepted 
with alacrity the cigarettes which seemed more potent 
than passports or even the blue permis. Everywhere 
were trenches, wire entanglements, and other obstacles 
to German progress, should the enemy ever have the 
mind and the means to come that way. Here and there 
a rude grave marked the hurried burial-place of some 
poor fellow who had died for home and country. And 
once we saw a burial. A passing motor-cyclist took a 
photograph of this unforgettable ceremony and sent me 
a print later on. 

By eight o'clock we had reached Fumes — dull, dismal, 
dismantled and well-nigh depopulated. We found a typi- 
cal Flemish inn, just off the market-place, with a typical 



46 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

Flemish woman in charge, who served us a typical Flem- 
ish breakfast of black bread, raw onions, fried eggs and 
coffee. The incessant cannonading all the way from 
Nieuport to Dixmude and as far south-east as Ypres 
was plainly audible — Krupp's heavy artillery orchestra, 
Allen called it, booming forth its unending funeral march. 

" Let's get a little nearer the fireworks, if we can," 
said Hotchkiss. 

" Agreed ! " said the rest. So Hotchkiss and I fared 
forth for the indispensable pernds to the Commandant 
General's office. The General was in fatigue uniform 
and received us graciously. Hotchkiss knew of him and 
they at once chatted about their mutual friends. Having 
got the officer into a most genial mood, our, doughty 
cicerone casually remarked: 

" We have our car with us. General, and want to see 
the sights. We have decided to push on to the firing 
line. Just which point do you advise us to visit? " 

Such nerve completely " flabbergasted " the French- 
man. It was nothing short of the most consummate im- 
pertinence on our part. 

When he had recovered his breath, he said : 

" This is a most extraordinary request, but I don't 
know but I will let you go, at that. Only, you must 
return before night. You'll need no written permis, for 
after you leave Fumes every one will know you're O. K. ; 
otherwise you wouldn't have been allowed east of Furnes. 
Don't go to Nieuport or Dixmude, although they're 
only seven or eight miles away, for there is heavy fight- 







Copyright, International News Ser\ ice 

BELGIAN REFUGEES BETWEEN FURNES AND DUNKIRK 




BURIAL OF A FRENCH SOLDIER NEAR FURNES 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 47 

ing there today and both towns are on fire. Go to Ypres 
twenty miles south-east, where things are quieter. But 
don't forget you're going on a devilishly dangerous 
journey ! " 

So we fed the insatiable " Dreadnaught " with ten 
gallons of petrol, at three dollars and ten cents a gallon, 
and at half-past ten pointed her nose south-east towards 
Ypres, by Tommy Atkins yclept " Wipers." 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

Ypres Under Bombardment — Shell Hits Cathedral; We Nar- 
rowly Escape Death — Under Fire Between the French and 
German Lines — Arrested as Spies, Adjudged to be "Fools" 
and Sent Back. 

AS we cautiously felt our way through Furnes, 
whose barricaded streets were further impeded 
with debris and great yawning holes made by 
exploding bombs and artillery shells, we passed on the 
right and left many huddled heaps of stone and mortar 
that had formerly been homes. 

Once outside of the town, we realized that we had hit 
upon a rare day. Not a cloud in the sky, no wind, the 
thermometer at just about the freezing point, and the 
whole flat country, except where it had been flooded to 
hinder the German advance, mantled in an inch of snow. 
It was just the morning for a Nature-worshipper, but 
here all the appeal of Nature fell only upon ears deaf- 
ened by the incessant roar of artillery, portent of Death 
and Destruction. At every discharge of one of the big 
guns, the ground trembled as if moved by an earthquake. 
And the procession still flanked us on either side, as it 
had all the way from Dunkirk to Fumes. Returning 
from the front, as always, were the everlasting gray 

48 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 49 

Red Cross ambulances, bearing to the hospitals their 
bleeding freight. 

A short way from Fumes we saw an enormous pillar 
of smoke blackening the sky as it rose from burning Dix- 
mude. None of us could tell whether the Allies or the 
Germans had control of the place. Not far from Ypres 
we crossed the Yser, for the possession of which the Ger- 
mans had fought so long. And now for the first time, we 
noticed in the distance, high in the air, great fleecy smoke- 
clouds. They looked like enormous white balls of cotton, 
floating in the air. As each one appeared, we heard the 
sharp report of an explosion. It was the bursting shrap- 
nel shells, those deadly devices which hurl down upon the 
enemy not only their own torn fragments, but hundreds 
of imprisoned bullets. So ceaseless was this shrapnel 
fire that at no time after we crossed the Yser until our 
return in the afternoon was the sky wholly free from 
these fleecy death clouds. 

About noon we reached Ypres — or rather its corpse — 
once the capital of West Flanders. Before the war 
twenty thousand people lived here in peace and pros- 
perity, m.ost of them lace-makers. Now we could find 
in the place neither a single civilian nor a whole pane of 
glass. Not a store was open. Parts of the town were 
in flames. We stopped at one demolished house and 
took a look at the ruins. 

Out of the rubbish I picked a little china image, 
marked " Nieuport Ville," of three Flemish children 
taking hold of hands and dancing — the sort of thing 



50 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

that countless tourists have purchased for souvenirs all 
over Europe. By a miracle it had escaped the general 
destruction. It was the only unbroken object in the 
place, and is the only souvenir I brought from Ypres. 

Frequently our car had to zigzag from side to side 
to avoid pitching into the great shell-craters. These 
enormous excavations often exposed the cellars of ad- 
joining houses. Wherever a single shell from a '* Jack 
Johnson " — the big German howitzer — had struck 
buildings had been demolished from garret to cellar. 
Others, hit by incendiary missiles containing celluloid, 
phosphorus and wax, were first partially demolished and 
then consumed in the ensuing fire. It would be hard to 
imagine more terrible havoc than Ypres showed every- 
where. 

Although we saw no civilians, soldiers threaded their 
tortuous way in and out of the dismantled buildings and 
scrambled over rubbish heaps and shell-holes. Most of 
these were French or British, with a sprinkling of Sikhs. 
Always they regarded our American flag intently, and 
always they made no comment. Ypres was no place for 
idle conversation. 

We came at last to the famous Cloth Hall in the 
great market-place, that magnificent thirteenth-century 
Gothic structure, which had been ravaged by gun-fire and 
flames. Only the shell remained. In the ruined arch- 
ways stood soldiers. On their faces was a noticeable ex- 
pression of strained, anxious expectancy. We had 
noticed it before on the faces of the soldiers in the street. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 51 

and we had wondered what it meant. Soon we were 
to find out. 

The car moved on, picking its way gingerly between 
yawning holes and hillocks of brick and mortar. Pres- 
ently as we approached St. Martin's Cathedral, an im- 
pressive Gothic building of the fourteenth century, a 
roaring, screaming shell of heavy calibre hurtled through 
the air and crashed into the massive stone wall fifty 
feet from the ground, not a hundred yards ahead of 
us. Now we knew what the soldiers had been expecting. 
Ypres was being bombarded ! 

When the shell struck, there was a deafening roar — 
like a thousand tons of coal being shot all at once down 
a gigantic iron chute. We saw smoke and falling 
masonry. Our car was slewed violently to one side. 
Dense smoke and clouds of dust rose from the ruins. 
Allen shut off the engine and applied the brakes. The car 
was dead. Then he turned to Hotchkiss. 

** Have we gone far enough? " 

" No," said Hotchkiss, Harold, his son, and Milner in 
one breath. Hotchkiss continued: 

" Take that street to the right and keep on." 

** Oh, very well," said Allen. " This is my car, you 
understand, but if you say the word, I'll drive it straight 
to Hell." 

"That's not far to go, old man," replied Hotchkiss; 
" we're within about six inches from it right now, so go 
ahead and we'll have a look at the Old Boy himself." 
And on we went. 



52 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

Strange to say, none of us was frightened. We 
seemed to be automatically keyed up to encounter almost 
any kind of surprise. I wasn't nearly so upset as I had 
been the day before at Calais, when the German airplane 
swooped down on us. 

We moved out of Ypres about one o'clock, forgetting 
all about eating. In fact, if we had wanted food, we 
should have been obliged to borrow it from the soldiers. 
We again found ourselves in the country, on the road 
to Roulers, still heading for the first line of trenches. 

** Shall we go any farther?" asked Hotchkiss. 

*' Keep straight on," was the unanimous vote. 

So on we went, six and a half miles, while "cannon to 
right of us, cannon to left of us volleyed and thundered." 
On both sides were parallel lines of supporting trenches, 
to which the soldiers at the extreme front could retire if 
necessary. They were well concealed, but occasionally 
possible of detection. Now and then we came upon a 
house shattered by gun-fire, the surrounding trees splin- 
tered and scarred. 

As we advanced amid the din of cannonading, we sud- 
denly realized that there was gun-fire behind us. Over- 
head we could hear the whining of shells as they passed 
from the French to the German side of battle. To me 
the noise of these shells was not unlike the distant sound 
of a siren whistle on a fire-engine. We craned our necks 
to see where this firing was coming from, but so cleverly 
were the guns concealed that we couldn't get a glimpse 
of them. 



i||t!lf! 





Illustrated London News, 1914 

SHELL HOLE, YPRES, NOVEMBER, 1914 




Copyright, International New- Sv r\ it > 

THE CLOTH HALL, YPRES, NOVEMBER, I914 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 53 

Not one of us had the remotest idea where we were 
going. Yet we all seemed bent on keeping on until 
something — we knew not what — should stop us. No 
one spoke. But all our faculties were keenly alive. 
Nothing that could be seen or heard escaped us. 

At ten kilometers from Ypres we ran straight into the 
arms of a French patrol. With fixed bayonet, we were 
halted by a bearded " Poilu," who wore the red cap and 
trousers and blue coat of the infantry. I remember that 
at the time I mentally criticized the stupidity of a gov- 
ernment which would garb its soldiers in such a ridic- 
ulously conspicuous uniform. However, this person had 
news for us. Addressing Hotchkiss, he said: 

" You are now beyond the main advanced trenches of 
the Allies. You see those trees in the distance, where 
the road curves? That spot marks the farthest advance 
trench from the German lines. The enemy's trenches 
are less than half a kilometer away.'* 

This was cheering news! Here we were, actually 
caught between the firing lines, and as liable to be 
" potted " by a French or English as by' a German 
missile. As we listened, we still heard the firing behind 
us. We also heard it in front of us. And we knew the 
patrol had spoken the truth. 

For the first time I now noticed a handsome stone 
building to the left of the road, surrounded by a garden, 
v^ith a summer-house and stables. It was the sort of 
dwelling that might have belonged to some wealthy land 
owner. There were no other dwellings near by. How it 



54 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

had escaped German shells, I have no idea. From this 
house there came an officer. Stepping up to the car, and 
speaking as politely as he knew how — and the French 
are always polite — he told us we must be considered 
prisoners of war. 

" What are you doing out here anyway? " he asked. 

Hotchkiss explained frankly that we were " only on a 
tour of adventure." 

" Do you know it is very dangerous here? " asked the 
officer. 

" Well, we can stand it if you can," smiled Hotchkiss. 

The officer, though plainly puzzled, came to a decision 
quickly. He would search our persons in his politest 
French manner, examine our credentials, and, if we 
were found free from suspicion, send us back to Ypres 
in the most polished Parisian fashion. So each one of 
us handed him the blue permis, but on examining them, 
of course, he found that they were good only from Havre 
to Dunkirk. Looking very serious, he declared this de- 
manded a thorough explanation. Hotchkiss accordingly 
retired to the building with the officer to act as our 
spokesman — and hostage, while at the wheel of the car, 
like a footman in attendance on royalty, stood our fully 
armed sentinel, posted there to prevent our escape. The 
eye of the warrior was upon us, and the glint of the sun 
on his bayonet made us nervous. We began to feel 
cramped and fidgety and faint. 

" Would the sentry permit the gentlemen to stretch 
their legs ? " 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 55 

*' Certainement, messieurs." 

And so the *' messieurs " piled out of the car in a 
hurry and strolled up and down the road and sauntered 
into the fields and gazed and gaped at those round white 
balls of darning cotton overhead — with the deadly steel 
in them. We looked for all the world like open-mouthed 
'' rubes " fascinated by the ground and lofty tumbling 
at a country circus. To me it seemed only a Fourth of 
July fireworks display. The smoke pufTs against the 
blue background made a beautiful picture. 

At one time I started to count them. I had counted 
as far as eleven, all of which had appeared practically at 
the same moment, when there was a distinct thud in 
the road behind us. A piece of shrapnel had struck 
uncomfortably near. 

Soon after young Milner wandered off into the field 
** to get a better view." Suddenly there was a loud 
report two hundred feet over his head. He came scurry- 
ing back. 

" Never touched me," he said, laughing. But I saw 
on his coat and trousers some of the mud the pattering 
bullets had sent up. 

Besides the lesser sounds of shrapnel fire, there was 
the frequent roar of the heavier artillery, followed by 
the singing of the projectile as it sped through the air 
above us, too rapidly to be seen, but disquietingly audi- 
ble. There were moments that were almost deafening 
when, all at once, we could hear the scream of flying 
projectiles, the explosions of shrapnel and the deep 



56 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

booming of howitzers. Occasionally we spoke to the 
sentinel on guard by the car, feeding him the while with 
cigarettes. He told us that fifteen minutes before we 
arrived, a large shell had exploded just back of the house. 

Presently from the direction of Ypres came sounds 
of hard riding. We turned and saw a French cavalry 
captain. He dismounted and approached us. But 
although he was French, he was not polite. Neither was 
he pleasant. 

*' What are you doing here? " he roared. 

Harold Hotchkiss, who spoke French as well as his 
father, replied : 

** We're merely sightseers." 

" Well, you're a pack of damned fools," roared the 
captain, or words to that effect. '^ Get back into that 
automobile ! " 

This was the one and only time we heard harsh lan- 
guage anywhere in Flanders or in France. 

We meekly climbed aboard the " Dreadnaught," as 
the captain stalked into the headquarters building. We 
felt humbled, crestfallen. But we knew we deserved the 
treatment we had received. For what right, title or in- 
terest had we, a parcel of hare-brained tourists, in making 
this thoroughly irregular excursion to the seat of war? 
We had long suspected that possibly we might be intrud- 
ing. After the captain's speech, we knew we were. 

We had to stay now, sulking in the limousine — like 
Achilles in his tent. At the right front wheel gleamed 
the bayonet of our jailer, ready to shoot at the drop of 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 57 

a hat, in the name of " Liberty, Equality and Frater- 
nity." 

At the end of a session lasting an hour and a half, 
Hotchkiss reappeared, accompanied by two officers. He 
was smiling. This heartened us immensely. We were 
free! But we learned that we were to return to Ypres, 
straightway. That much was final, undebatable. So 
we doled out the last of our cigars and cigarettes to all 
hands, were thanked effusively and faced about for 
Ypres. 

I was convinced that Hotchkiss had had a pretty un- 
comfortable session during that hour and a half's grill- 
ing. There he was, all alone, trying to explain the 
unexplainable presence of a party of civilian motorists, 
within striking distance of the enemy's lines. The fact 
is, we were suspected spies. And if it had not been for 
our spokesman's incomparable tact and diplomacy, I 
hate to think what might have befallen us. 

As the " Dreadnaught " gathered headway, I asked 
Hotchkiss just what had happened. He rolled an un- 
lighted cigar in his lips a moment, and then replied : 

*' I'd rather not tell you — just now. After the war 
is over, you may ask me." 

But I shall never know. On May 7, 191 5, he went 
down with the Lusitania. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

In the Belgian Field Hospital at Furnes — Dunkirk Again — 
Pat Buries a Live German — Havre — Rouen — I Reach Paris 
with Fourteen Cents. 

ON the way back, after passing through Ypres, 
we stopped for a bite at Fumes. We had 
eaten nothing since breakfast and were fam- 
ished. 

After examining some captured mud-covered Ger- 
man mortars in the market-place, we noticed, standing 
near by, two tall, black Senegalese. They wore the 
customary red turban, loose blue coat and baggy trousers, 
once white, now dingy gray. One carried a large round 
bundle, wrapped in newspapers. We asked him what 
he had. 

" A Boche's head," he answered, in broken English. 

"Where'd you get it?" 

" Cut him off live Boche," the fellow answered, mak- 
ing a gesture like cutting his throat. 

But when we pressed him to show us his grisly trophy, 
he refused to undo the wrappings. 

His companion was munching a large chunk of bread. 

" What did you do to the Boches?" Hotchkiss asked 
him. 

58 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 59 

" Me cut off Boche's ears," he replied. 

'' Where are the ears? " 

*' Here," said the black man, pointing to his right- 
hand pocket. 

'* Show 'em to us," we chorused. 

" No — no show 'em," he stubbornly replied. 

And that's the nearest I ever got to proving — or dis- 
proving — any of the " atrocity " stories which were fly- 
ing about everywhere. 

And, a minute later, when the fellow with the " ears " 
in his pocket jammed into that same pocket the remains 
of his half-eaten loaf, I began to question his veracity 
as a scholar and a gentleman of color. 

We then made a call at the Belgian Field Hospital, a 
three-minutes walk from the square. We thought we'd 
give Doctor Beavis, our London acquaintance, a surprise. 
As we trooped into the hospital, the Doctor was bending 
over a patient. In response to our salutation he straight- 
ened up — and nearly fell over backward. 

*' You certainly made good your boast," said he. 

The hospital, once a convent school, had been built 
round a quadrangle. We found it well equipped, 
scrupulously clean, and in perfect working order. The 
patients were the seriously wounded and those needing 
immediate attention. We saw several poor fellows who 
had been hit by shrapnel and who hadn't long to live. 
Practically all were shrapnel victims ; there was only one 
case of a bayonet wound in the hospital. 

Pointing to a bandaged figure lying in a cot, Doctor 



6o A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

Beavis said : " Here's our pet case. This man, with nine- 
teen inches of his intestines removed, is convalescing!" 

The sufferer was a Belgian, and, like all the rest, 
" wanted to get back to the firing line right away." In 
spite of his terrible experiences he was as cheerful as 
a pickaninny in a watermelon patch. 

Elsewhere were men and youths in all stages of 
bodily distress and disrepair. But neither from the 
operating tables, where the blood-letting was profuse, 
nor from the cots, where white-robed sufferers writhed 
in agony, did I hear a murmur or a groan. No matter 
how they suffered, those who had their wits were silent. 
Only the delirious raved. *' Cannon food ! " These 
chaps who endured the carnage of battle and of surgery 
without moan or whimper were real Men. And if you 
really crave the sensation of doing just a little bit of 
good in the world, you should hand a cigar or a cigarette 
to one of them and note the smile, the light in the face, 
the satisfied sigh, as he inhales the first whiff. 

As we bade farewell to Doctor Beavis, more ambu- 
lances rolled up and discharged their broken, bleeding 
cargoes at the door. I was told that so thick and fast 
were they coming in that there weren't cots enough to go 
around, and that late arrivals would have to be laid on 
the floor on straw. 

We got back to the market-place in the nick of time 
to salute King Albert. He had just motored in from the 
front, accompanied only by his chauffeur. It was charac- 
teristic of this democratic, humane and modest monarch 




Illustrated London News, November, 19 14 

CAPTURED GERMAN MORTARS IN THE SQUARE AT FURNES 









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Copyright, International Film Service, Inc. 

KING ALBEPT (lEFT) SALUTING IN THE SQUARE AT FURNES 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 6i 

that he had forbidden all cheering or kow-towing when- 
ever and wherever he went. And so there was no demon- 
stration in Furnes that day — only a silent touching of 
the cap by those who stood near when he left his car 
and walked into Headquarters. 

The King wore a simple fatigue uniform, that of a 
Belgian colonel. There were no medals on his breast, 
nor any trappings about his person that even suggested 
royalty. I couldn't help contrasting this simple, unosten- 
tatious ruler, who goes in and out among his people, a 
man among men, with the Prussian War Lord, whose 
every appearance in public calls for pomp, ceremony and 
demonstration. And I couldn't help remembering, with 
a thrill, that while Wilhelm is purely a product of auto- 
cratic monarchy, Albert once lived among us the every- 
day life of an American citizen. 

Hurrying along to Dunkirk, we again put up at the 
Brasserie Lilloise, where we were to pass the night. In 
the grubby little tap-room of the inn we picked up a 
good story from a British officer. 

After one of the unsuccessful assaults on the Allies' 
trenches at the Battle of Ypres, a company from one 
of the Irish regiments was sent out to bury the Ger- 
man dead. Pat and Mike were picking up the corpses 
and, with scant ceremony, heaving them into the open 
graves. Presently, as Pat picked up one dead German 
and started off with him, another, just beneath, began 
to move. He lifted his head, and said in broken English : 

" Ach, mein Gott ! Don't bury me, Herr Soldier ! I'm 



62 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

wounded, but not dead — not dead ! Verstehen Sie 
nicht?" 

Pat looked at him a minute and then called out to 
Mike: 

** Faith, Moike, here's a damned German wot claims 
he ain't dead ! " 

And Mike called back: 

" Don't ye belave him, Pat ! Thim Germans is all liars. 
He's as dead as the rist. Shovel him in." 

The next morning we pushed on to Calais and this 
time fortunately found rooms at the Grand Hotel, one 
of the best in the city. I immediately visited the Credit 
Lyonnais and found that the War Department had tele- 
graphed the requested permission from Paris for the bank 
to pay me on my letter of credit. I therefore drew what 
I thought enough money to get me to Paris comfortably. 

In the reading-room of the hotel I made the acquaint- 
ance of an Englishman, A. Ronald Trist, of London, 
whom business had brought over to France. He was 
anxious to get to Paris and we were glad to have him 
accompany us, for since Harold Hotchkiss and young 
Milner left us here, the acquisition of a new passenger 
did not incommode us. We found Trist a very com- 
panionable fellow. He told us that he had succeeded in 
getting to Nieuport and reported that the Cathedral there 
had been '' smashed to smithereens," but that in the 
midst of the debris lay the marble statue of Christ, 
absolutely unscathed. 

We reached Abbeville that evening and the next day 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 63 

were again in Havre, where Hotchkiss had further busi- 
ness. We put up at the Hotel Bordeaux in the Place 
Gambetta. 

On November 24th we started bright and early for 
Paris, one hundred and forty miles distant, by way oi 
Rouen. Repeatedly we gave soldiers and peasants a 
lift — a pleasant experience for us and for them. At 
Rouen we lunched, looked at the Cathedral of Notre 
Dame and the Church of St. Ouen, and talked a bit 
about Joan of Arc. Pushing on, we admired the beauti- 
ful rolling country between Rouen and Paris, all in a 
high state of cultivation and continually unfolding to 
our view a perfect panorama of peasant thrift. But in 
spite of its seeming prosperity we frequently passed 
through towns and villages where long lines of appli- 
cants for food made up the bread line which the gov- 
ernment had already instituted as a measure of prepared- 
ness against want. At Fleury and Gisors we saw Brit- 
ish soldiers, some being drilled in manoeuvers, others 
playing football. Everywhere we noticed signs in Eng- 
lish directing travelers where to go, newly erected for 
the benefit of the " Tommies." 

When we got to Paris at dusk, I examined my purse. 
Due to certain impromptu hospitality on the road, I 
found I had left just fourteen cents! Nevertheless, I 
acted upon the recommendation of our friend Trist and 
went straight to the Hotel Burgundy, Rue Duphot, near 
the Place de la Madeleine. Trist knew the proprietor, 
from whom he promised a cordial reception, which was 



64 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

promptly forthcoming. It was a small house and the 
serving staff was kind and considerate, though heavily- 
depleted by the war. Thirteen of the male employees 
were gone and women now ran the elevators and waited 
on table. 

Hiring a room with a bath, I decided to indulge in a 
good, hot tub, especially as I had not had one since 
leaving London. Turning on the faucet marked 
" Chaud," imagine my disappointment when it turned 
out to be *' froid " — and freezing '' f roid " at that. On 
inquiry, I learned that so many men had gone to the 
front that there was no one in the house to look after 
the fires that heated the water. 

" Only another of the Horrors of War," I said to 
myself, as I drew a tubful of ice-water and plunged in. 



CHAPTER NINE 

Paris — Buying German War Trophies — Havre — The "Dread- 
naught" Commandeered — Comes Back Branded — Taken for 
a Whiskey Peddler — Held up at the Dock — Sail from Liver- 
pool — Mine Explosion Barely Misses Ship — Home Before 
Christmas — I Win My Wager. 

PARIS showed the effects of war upon the nation 
much more than London or BerHn. All the 
shops were suffering from the prevailing* scar- 
city of male help. Many of them were shuttered, with 
placards conspicuously setting forth the fact that they 
were " Closed. Parties Gone to the War." In the 
places that remained open, little business was being done. 
Only two months before, the Germans were at the very 
gates of the city. None knew when they might return. 
The shadow of a great tragedy was on everything. But 
from the windows of the buildings, in the crisp autumn 
breeze waved the flags of the Allied Nations. Every one 
tried to appear cheerful. But, under the smile, you felt 
the heart-ache. Wounded soldiers hobbled along the 
streets, though they were not so numerous as in Berlin. 
Troops were being drilled in every available spot, while 
others, having finished their preparatory courses, marched 
off to the front under heavy equipment. 

65 



66 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

Repeatedly I passed women in mourning. I asked a 
Parisian if this necessarily meant that they had all lost 
relatives at the front. He replied, " No," but explained 
that, as France was fighting for its very life, the women 
thought it patriotic to wear black for their bleeding, 
suffering country. 

The city was in a thorough state of defence. After 
dark monster searchlights on the Eiffel Tower and else- 
where searched the gloom, trying to disclose the where- 
abouts of hostile Zeppelins. The so-called Paris " night 
life " had disappeared. All theatres were closed. Only 
here and there the humble " movie " held forth. How- 
ever, before I left, the famous Moulin Rouge was re- 
opened. We thought the occasion would be worth see- 
ing, but when we went to get tickets, we found a Ibng 
line of applicants filling the street for fully a block. It 
was clearly a time for bribery and corruption, so instead 
of waiting in line, I approached the official in charge, 
slipped a five-franc piece into his hand, and asked for 
five good seats. He whispered my request to the box- 
office attendant, who immediately passed out five seats 
in the front row in the balcony, for which I paid the 
prevailing rates. The intensely patriotic show, which 
evoked much enthusiasm, I was glad enough to see, but 
if I had waited for my turn in the line I should never 
have got in. 

The next day I came upon a most interesting sight — 
a large squad of boys, who had taken possession of the 
Champs Elysees and, equipped with sticks, were manoeu- 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 67 

vering and drilling with great enthusiasm. There wasn't 
a youngster in the lot over twelve years of age, and 
some of them were not more than six or seven. 

At Cook's I hired a guide, an Englishman, and told 
him I wanted as a souvenir a German helmet. We took a 
taxi and for some time scurried about unavailingly. 
There was a law prohibiting the sale of such things to 
strangers. Finally, I located one shop where the pro- 
prietor was willing to " take a chance." From him I 
purchased a German artillery officer's helmet in its hat- 
box. Inside was the name " Frank," and the insignia 
on the front showed him to be a member of an artillery 
corps from the Grand Duchy of Baden. The box and 
helmet had been found, together with all his other lug- 
gage, at Meaux, on September 6th, from which place the 
Germans had been forced to retreat precipitately. I also 
secured a German private soldier's overcoat, found at 
Berry-au-Bac, September 20th. The owner of this, too, 
had written his name on the lining : " Musketier Polchow, 
12 Kompagnie." Then I bought a French general's 
cap, decorated with red and gold braid, inside which 
was written : " General Lallement." And I picked up 
some exploded shells, from the German artillery, and 
some of the wicker baskets for carrying the shells. 

On the 27th I drove with Allen to the American 
Embassy to see our Ambassador, the Hon. Myron T. 
Herrick, to whom I had a letter of introduction from 
the Hon. Winslow Warren of my home town, Dedham 
Mass. He received us very graciously, though I dare 



68 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

say he had a thousand important matters to attend to, 
for this was his last day in office, and Mr. Sharpe would 
succeed him on the morrow. Mr. Herrick had endeared 
himself to the hearts of all Frenchmen, and from the 
way he spoke I knew he sorely regretted giving up his 
post. But since " to the victor belong the spoils " the 
Republican appointee had to give way to the choice 
of a Democratic President. When the Germans were 
battering their way toward the gates of Paris, Mr. 
Herrick alone, of all the foreign ambassadors and min- 
isters, stuck to his post in Paris, refusing to go to Bor- 
deaux when the French seat of government was removed 
to that city. 

That same afternoon I met the Secretary of the Lega- 
tion, Mr. Robert W. Bliss, who has continued the splen- 
did work with Mr. Sharpe that he began with Mr. Her- 
rick. Also I had the pleasure of meeting the Hon. 
Robert Bacon, former Ambassador to France, who kindly 
permitted us to visit the American Ambulance at Neuilly, 
which had done so much for the French wounded and 
for which the French nation will ever be grateful. After 
we had gone through the different wards where the 
wounded were being cared for, I went to an American 
photographer, a Mr. H. C. Ellis, and had him make 
photographs at the hospital, two of which are reproduced 
in this book. As a result of the splendid activities of 
Ambassador Herrick and the American Ambulance, 
Americans were everywhere treated with great courtesy, 
not to say enthusiasm. 




NURSES AT AMERICAN AMBULANCE, NEUILLY 




AUTO AMBULANCES AT AMERICAN AMBULANCE, NEUILLY 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 69 

Now that I had seen the capitals of three of the five 
great European nations which were at war, I thought 
that I might as well return to America in time for Christ- 
mas. Finding that the Cunarder Transylvania was 
scheduled to sail from Liverpool on December 5th, I 
decided to take passage on her. Accordingly, on No- 
vember 29th, Hotchkiss, Allen and I started for Havre 
by the same route we had come. Leaving very early 
and stopping only at Pontoise, where we breakfasted 
and wrote post-cards home, we made Havre that night, 
where we again invoked the hospitality of the Hotel 
Bordeaux. 

In front of the hotel we had an unpleasant shock. 
Noticing the car, a French officer stepped up and told 
us, in courteous but firm language, that he should have 
to commandeer it in the name of the government. We 
expostulated in vain. He said he wanted it only for " a 
short time." Allen saw that it was no use to resist, so 
he grudgingly accepted the receipt offered by the officer, 
who immediately hopped in and drove off, leaving us no 
longer motorists, but simple pedestrians. We didn't see 
the car for two days. And if Hotchkiss and Allen hadn't 
gone to the British Ambassador to Belgium, at Sainte 
Adresse, and put up a vigorous protest, it is doubtful 
if the car would ever have turned up. The diplomat 
began to pull wires with such good effect that the car 
was speedily returned. It could easily be seen that it 
had had a hard forty-eight hours. It looked as if it had 
at least been to Paris and back. It was covered with 



70 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

the accumulated stains of travel; and across the paneled 
back, which afforded an excellent marking surface, an 
exultant foreigner had traced the words, " Vive la 
France! " The gritty, sticky, oily dust, thus rubbed into 
the varnish, could not be removed, even by repeated 
washings. Doubtless it was meant to express the French 
officer's pride of possession. It was as indelible as a 
stock-breeder's brand on a Texas pony. When Allen 
met me in London a year later, I could still plainly 
discern that " Vive la France ! " — ineradicable souvenir 
of its brief career in the service of the! Republic. 

The delay in returning the car and certain business 
transactions of Hotchkiss detained us in Havre four 
days. Each morning we would go down to the docks 
and watch the arrival of the British transports, loaded 
with infantry and artillery, whose safe passage across 
the Channel was substantial proof of the efficacy of the 
British Navy in affording protection against German 
interference. As the soldiers marched through the streets 
they invariably started singing " Tipperary." Now and 
then some one would shout : " Are we downhearted ? " 
and a thundering " No \ " would boom from the throats 
of the entire regiment. The French populace cheered 
them wildly. 

One day an English non-com. sergeant major asked 
me, very humbly, if I would buy him a bottle of Scotch 
whiskey. 

" Why don't you get it yourself? " I asked. 

He replied that the privates and non-coms, of the 




POST-CARDS, PARIS, NOVEMBER, I914 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 71 

British Army were forbidden to buy spirituous liquors 
in France ; they could have only light beers and wines. 

" But you see, sir," so he explained, " there's sickness 
in my battalion and I need the whiskey for medicinal 
purposes." 

As the story seemed plausible, and as I knew that 
civilians could buy what they liked, I took his four shil- 
lings, purchased the whiskey and handed it to him. He 
thanked me and gave me in exchange an army knife and 
some cartridge clips. 

Before daylight next morning I was awakened by a 
low but persistent murmuring outside my window. I 
arose and looked out. The street in front of the hotel 
was literally filled with " Tommies." When I was 
dressed and went down stairs, the plump landlady told 
me what was up. 

" You see, sir, the soldiers are waiting for you. Every 
man Jack of them has got four shillings in his hand, and 
wants you to buy him a bottle of Scotch whiskey." 

I *' beat it " for my room without further parley. Nor 
did I venture forth until the whiskey famine victims had 
disappeared. It was evident that my sergeant-major 
friend had not confined his use of the contraband to 
" medicinal purposes," and that he had spread the good 
news to such an extent that I was in imminent danger 
of becoming a regular '' pocket peddler " against my 
will! 

Another soldier I met was Sergeant Rouchy, later an 
officer in the Chasseurs Alpins, stationed at Grenoble, 



72 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

France. He borrowed my German helmet and was 
photographed in it. " My sweetheart will be proud of 
this picture," he said. 

It was now December 3d, and the time for leaving was 
rapidly approaching. So Allen and I started in the car 
for the dock. Hotchkiss also came along to bid us 
good-bye at the steamer. He was to sail later from 
Havre for New York on the Touraine. At the dock 
there was a long line of people waiting for the examina- 
tion of their papers and other formalities. Hotchkiss 
therefore decided to return to the hotel, remarking cas- 
ually, *' You'll have no trouble, so I guess I'll go along." 
We shook his hand and bade him Godspeed, with a poign- 
ant sense of indebtedness for all he had been to us. 
Thus departed one of the Invincible Three. A year 
later I saw Allen in London, and in the interim I saw 
Hotchkiss in Boston. But his death the following May 
loosed the three-strand thread of a friendship that can 
never be wholly reunited. 

The Channel boats left Havre for Southampton each 
night at midnight. I had previously had my passport 
vised by the American consul, but at the dock I found 
that it would again have to be vised by the British Con- 
sul-General. For this ceremony, as I have stated, there 
was a long line in waiting. When my turn came, I pre- 
sented my passport to the consul. He glanced at it care- 
lessly and was about to stamp it and pass me, when a 
kefen-eyed Frenchman, with an enormous black mous- 
tache, who stood at his side, suddenly laid an accus- 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 73 

ing forefinger on the tell-tale German seals which the 
Teutonic official at Rotterdam had affixed, nearly five 
weeks before. 

"What does this mean?" asked the consul, glaring 
at me. 

'* It means I've been to Berlin," said I. 

"What did you go there for?" 

" Well, you see, Consul, it was this way. Over at 
home one day I made a bet with a classmate of mine, 

William , of Boston — the wager being a box 

of cigars — that I could not only get to England and 
France, but even to Germany, and be back again in 
Boston before Christmas. So, in order to win my bet, 
you'll have to pass me right along, because I've got to 
hurry to catch the Transylvania/' 

I felt satisfied that I had pulled the thing off quite 
a la Hotchkiss; my " nerve " would get me by. But the 
consul gloomily shook his head and ordered me to " go 
back and sit down " until further orders. So I stayed 
there until quarter of twelve, at which hour the last 
applicant for permission to cross was disposed of. In 
the cheerless, dimly lighted, cold freight shed I sat, 
perched on a box, cooling my heels and longing for good 
old Hotchkiss to come along and help me out. But he 
was far away, arranging for his own transportation. 
Allen, to be sure, was still with me, but his car being on 
board, he would be obliged to accompany it to England. 
It was certain that if I were not allowed to proceed I 
should miss the Transylvania at Liverpool, could never 



74 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

reach home before Christmas — and should forfeit a 
perfectly good box of cigars. 

At a quarter of twelve the consul beckoned to me. As 
I approached with a more or less disconsolate air, he and 
the Frenchman both smiled; then without a word being 
spoken, my passport was vised and handed back to me, 
and I ducked aboard in a hurry. I found out afterwards 
that the Frenchman had spent over two hours telephon- 
ing to my hotel and to the American consul at his resi- 
dence. He had even telegraphed my hotel at Paris. 
Finally, after he had got Hotchkiss on the telephone, 
that good angel once more came to my rescue and with 
his persuasive tact prevailed upon the officials to let me 
sail. 

In ten hours we were at Southampton, where I noticed 
on the dock thousands of army tents ready for ship- 
ment to France. I wanted very much to go to thq 
South-Western Hotel, where my father died in 1895, 
but finding it given over to the army officers as barracks, 
we pushed on for London immediately, arriving there 
at mid-afternoon. As the steamer was to sail at mid- 
night from Liverpool, I hadn't much time to draw money 
at the bank and secure passage. But with the aid of 
Allen, who shot me round the city in his car, I succeeded 
in drawing enough from the bank, although it was after 
closing time, and engaging a vacant cabin at the Cook 
Agency. After a warm good-bye to Allen, of whom I 
had become very fond, I just managed to catch the night 
train for Liverpool, from which port the Transylvania 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 75 

sailed very early on the morning of December 5th — 
bound for home at last. 

The first night out, during a heavy gale off the Irish 
coast, about three o'clock there came a terrific explosion, 
which awakened every one on the ship. I immediately 
rose and looked out. Heads were sticking out of every 
other door, and the corridors were filling with people. 
Presently an officer appeared and, calmly announcing 
that it was " only a thunder clap," implored the passen- 
gers to return to their berths. As the boat seemed to 
be behaving normally, most of them became reassured 
and turned in again. As for me, I slipped into an over- 
coat and strolled on deck. I at once began to doubt the 
thunderstorm story, for looking carefully about, I failed 
to find a cloud in the sky. Moon and stars were shining 
brightly. Next morning the truth leaked out. The wash 
from the ship's bow had brought two mines violently 
together and they had both exploded about twenty-five 
feet off the port side — where my cabin was located. 
Flying fragments had even knocked down part of the 
forward railing and a piece of the mine had fallen on 
deck. When we docked in New York, we found that 
the news of this explosion had preceded us. Newspaper 
men clambered aboard to get the detailed story of our 
narrow escape, and that evening's New York and Boston 
papers contained lurid accounts of the " near-tragedy." 

After reading one of these accounts, I glanced at the 
date-line at the top of the page. It was " Saturday, 
December 16, 191 4." Whereat a glow of satisfaction 



76 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

enveloped me. For that date told me that, having 
crossed to England and the Continent, I was again back 
on " the old sod," that I should be at home before Christ- 
mas—and that I had won that box of cigars! 




SERGEANT ROUCHY IN GER- 
MAN HELMET 




SERGEANT ROUCHY AS ONE 

OF THE CHASSEURS 

ALPINS 




GROUP OF PASSENGERS ON THE TRANSYLVANIA, WEARING WAR 

TROPHIES 



FLIGHT THE SECOND 
October 3-31, 191 5 



CHAPTER TEN 

Passport Regulations Stiffen — London Set of Jaw, Forbidding 

— Zeppelin Raid of October 13th — Bombs Narrowly Miss Me 

— Great Devastation — An " R.A.M.C. " Craves a "Bracer." 

HAVING exhausted all my war stories, during 
the winter of 1914 and 19 15, in informal 
talks, by the time summer rolled round I 
found my war fever rising with the thermometer. By 
August I was again in the throes of " War-zonitis." My 
friends and relatives spent weeks trying to cure me ; they 
applied all the well known remedies, including gloomy 
prophecies of arrest, imprisonment, or death, destruc- 
tion by land, by sea and by sky, in case I should again 
venture to invade belligerent lands. Such remedies, 
however, proved vain and I began to make serious 
preparations, the latter part of September, for my sec- 
ond war trip. 

On going to the District Court in Boston to apply for 
my passport, I received my first proof that conditions 
in the fighting lands were stricter than on my previous 
visit; I was told that this year my photograph must be 

77 



78 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

attached to the document, and I was directed to the 
official photographer, located somewhere in the West 
End. I remember that it was a very hot day, that I 
looked bedraggled with the heat, and that I wore a cheap 
necktie. The combination was unfortunate, for when the 
print was handed to me and I showed it to one of my 
friends, he said: 

" Great Scott, man, it looks exactly like one of those 
pictures you see posted in the railway stations out in the 
wild and woolly West, just beneath the headline, * $i,ooo 
Reward for This Horse Thief, Dead or Alive.' " It is 
not a. picture I have ever been proud of. 

Other requirements had been added since my first 
trip. One of these necessitated telling the purpose of 
my visit, another naming the countries I intended travel- 
ing to. My brother-in-law in New York kindly helped 
me out in regard to the first, providing me with a letter 
which alleged that I was visiting Liverpool on " com- 
mercial business " for his firm. As to the countries 
which I was to visit, I made up my mind that it would 
be better to name more rather than less than I expected 
to go to, and so I proudly set forth that I intended to 
visit England, France, Germany and Austria. I also 
fortified myself with letters from the Dedham Transcript 
and the Boston Evening Transcript, stating that I was to 
write for these newspapers — a statement confirmed by 
Governor Walsh. Besides, I had letters from the State 
Department at Washington, secured through the Con- 
gressman of my district, Hon. Richard Olney, 2nd, and 




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A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 79 

Ex-Congressman Peters, of Massachusetts, to the Ameri- 
can Embassies in London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna. 
One of the Embassy attaches from BerHn, at home on 
leave, also gave me letters to friends of his in Germany, 
including some officers. I little thought that these meas- 
ures which I was taking so confidently to ensure my trip's 
being as wide as I chose to make it, would have exactly 
the opposite effect. 

After having my passport vised in New York by the 
Consuls-General of England, France, Austria, Germany 
and Holland, I sailed for Liverpool, October 3, 191 5, 
on the American liner St. Paul. Since the horrors of the 
preceding seventh of May, Americans had not been tak- 
ing passage much on steamers of British registry. This 
time the ship was not painted an inconspicuous gray, like 
the ill-starred Lusitania, but she flaunted a large Ameri- 
can flag painted on each side, with the words " American 
Line " in bold lettering. As we neared the British Isles, 
instead of having all the portholes covered, both sides of 
the ship were brilliantly lighted so as to illuminate the 
flags and the lettering, and we moved up St. George's 
Channel looking like an electric advertising sign on 
Broadway. No German submarine could possibly have 
mistaken our identity. 

Arriving at Liverpool on the morning of the nth, I 
reached London in the evening and was overjoyed to 
find my old friend Allen waiting for me at the station 
with the " Dreadnaught," " Vive la France! " still faintly 
discernible on its back, his only notification having been a 



8o A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

letter announcing the ship by which I was to sail. He 
insisted upon my going to his cosy apartments on West- 
minster Bridge Road, where I met his charming wife and 
two children. Later he took me to my hotel, which again 
was Morley's. We both sadly missed Hotchkiss. Had 
he been alive and with me, I should no doubt have suc- 
ceeded easily in reaching Berlin and Vienna — or Con- 
stantinople, if I had suddenly decided to go there. As it 
was, I was destined to see only England on this trip. 

I stayed in London ten days — October nth to 2ist. 
What impressed me most vividly was the great change 
one year had made in the spirit and temper of the Brit- 
ish people. The year before, England had been cheerful, 
almost gay. Now it was grim, stiff-spined, set of jaw, 
forbidding. Then tourists and neutrals were welcomed. 
Now they were shunned, cold-shouldered, suspected. In 
the popular mind, they were decidedly out of place. A 
year ago there was buoyancy, and a feeling that the war 
would soon be over. From every staff flew the flags of 
the Allies, side by side with the red banner of St. George. 
Now there were but few flags, and these always British. 
The city was fairly plastered with flaming war posters, 
urging enlistment. I remember Allen even found time 
to dig me up several, which he succeeded in getting by 
promising to post some of them in his garage. 

In a word, Britain had ceased to regard the war as a 
sporting event, with the odds easily in her favor. She 
knew now that it was a fight for life, with the chances 
little better than even. A year ago few wounded were 




1 r^ 


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YOU ARE NEEDED 
TO TAKE MY PUCE 

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"KITCHENER'S OWN' 







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5^ OVERSEAS 
PIONEER BATTAkIM 



ENGLISH AND CANADIAN WAR POSTERS, I915, I916 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 8i 

visible. Now nearly every train that rolled into Charing 
Cross and Waterloo disgorged its hordes of maimed and 
crippled. And what the censored press had been unable 
to convey was now borne in on the mind of every British 
subject by this endless stream of the wounded, flowing 
ceaselessly toward England night and day. Many 
women I noticed were in mourning. War was now a 
grim and grisly national peril. 

London at night was in a state of funereal gloom. All 
the street lights, now almost totally shrouded, had practi- 
cally lost their usefulness. In the intense darkness peo- 
ple actually couldn't see well enough to avoid running 
into each other. Cabs and busses constantly collided. 

Yet in the daytime there was plenty of excitement and 
life, particularly in Trafalgar Square, where recruiting 
hustings had been set up. The crowds surging about 
them were more excited than they had been a year ago, 
for the experiment of voluntary enlistments was ap- 
proaching its final and crucial stage. Not only England's 
leaders, but England's enemies, were providing the goads 
that were steadily thrusting hesitant non-combatants into 
the ranks of the fighters. With Lord Derby's spellbind- 
ers feverishly exhorting in the highways and byways and 
the Zeppelins of Germany hurling death and destruction 
from above, London was beginning to bubble up and 
boil over. Substantial evidences thereof could be found 
in the recruiting offices. 

One day I stopped to listen to the speakers. Among 
them were some Red Cross nurses. Between speeches a 



82 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

band played martial music. A fiery little man finally 
arose and started making an impassioned appeal for re- 
cruits. All at once a fellow standing near me, offended 
at something he said, began to interrupt him. 

" That's not so," he yelled. " You know better," and 
similar disconcerting remarks. Murmurs from the 
crowd. A woman remonstrated: 

" Ye blatherskite," she shouted, " ye orter be in khaki 
yourself." 

The interrupter, a rough-looking specimen of about 
forty, drew off and struck her viciously. 

" Kill the bloke ! He's a German ! " some one yelled. 

The fellow turned and ran. Three Canadians in uni- 
form, who were on the platform, leaped to the ground. 
The " German " was now out of the crowd and running 
for his life. The Canadians, surging through the mob, 
started in pursuit. Down the Strand flew the fugitive. 
Behind him sped the soldiers and part of the crowd, 
including myself. 

They caught him at the foot of Craven Street. One 
of the Canadians knocked the fellow down. He tried to 
rise. The other felled him. Again he lifted himself. A 
bystander then laid him low. Others followed. At the 
sixth or seventh blow a " Bobbie " interfered. Otherwise 
the mob would probably have killed him. What was left 
of him went to Bow Street. He wasn't led; he was 
carried. Who he was or what his purpose, I never found 
out. 

The second evening after my arrival in London I went 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 83 

to the Coliseum Theatre, near Trafalgar Square, with 
Allen. We were sitting in the sixth row, enjoying a 
variety show, when suddenly, about half -past nine, I 
heard a bang outside, faint but clear. My mind was 
primed for hostile airships. 

" A Zeppelin," I whispered to Allen. 

" It can't be that," he said; " it's some one slamming 
a door." 

Another report followed. Then " bang, bang, bang " 
in quick succession. I looked round the theatre. Not a 
soul had left his seat. 

" I'm going outside to see the fun," I said, and stepped 
into the aisle. Allen followed. I was sure by this time 
that the Germans were bombarding from the heavens, 
yet besides ourselves I don't believe twenty people left 
the theatre. Later on, however, in the most leisurely and 
normal way, it was emptied. 

We had hardly got to the street, when the sounds of 
artillery firing ceased. Whatever explosions had ac- 
companied the bomb dropping — if indeed there had been 
any — were now over. Then presently the anti-aircraft 
weapons renewed their salvos, for the searchlights had 
succeeded in locating the invader. Poised in dignity and 
disdain fully a mile above the city, practically overhead 
but slightly towards the Thames, was a monster Zeppe- 
lin, At that great height it was not over distinct in out- 
line, yet was perfectly recognizable. Around it the ex- 
ploding shells from the city's guns burst in little white 
puffs of smoke. To me the air-ship looked like one of 



84 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

those little lead sinkers, such as fishermen use in trolling, 
and the shrapnel puffs playing about it were the white- 
bellied fish, striking for the hook. 

In spite of the severe bombardment, so far as we could 
see, nothing struck the visitor and at last she turned tail 
and soon disappeared to the eastward. 

Allen went home immediately and I walked the streets 
for a short time. There was excitement, but no panic. 
No one seemed to know whether any bombs had been 
dropped. The only sentiments I could discover were 
those of curiosity and revenge. 

" We orter send a few Zeps over there," one man 
volunteered, " just to give the Boches a touch of their 
own bitters." 

Returning to Morley's, I went to bed, to sleep soundly 
and peacefully. Why shouldn't I? To be sure, within 
the last few months the " Safety First " habit had pene- 
trated to London, and on my arrival I had discovered 
that the only rooms not taken were on the top floor! 
Here they quartered me — in solitary dignity. It was 
evident that none of the other guests was yearning to 
officiate at the receiving end of a German bomb. I must 
admit that the first night I didn't like the prospect very 
well myself. The second night, being a little more at 
home in my elevated quarters, I naturally thought less 
about it. Now, in consequence of what I had just been 
hearing and seeing, of course my mind was full of aerial 
visitations, but I felt perfectly secure. As lightning is 
said never to strike twice in the same place, so the Ger- 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 85 

mans couldn't possibly bombard the same city twice in 
the same night. And so I got into my bed on the top 
floor of Morley's with as comfortable a sense of security 
as if it were my own bed at home. 

Waking before daylight, I got up early, and was 
amazed when the hotel barber told me, without any ex- 
citement, that not only had bombs been dropped within 
a few hundred yards of my hotel, and the theatre, too, 
at the very moment when Allen and I were enjoying the 
show, but that another German airship had appeared 
later and dropped several in another part of the city. 
Though the damage had been great, I had slept soundly 
in my exposed chamber all through this second visitation, 
as I had done the previous November in the little inn at 
Dunkirk, when aeroplane bombs were dropping in the 
street just around the comer. Apparently the detonations 
of German air-bombs were a good lullaby for me. 

Immediately after breakfast I went out to look at the 
damaged area. Beginning at a point on the opposite 
side of the Strand from the Hotel Cecil, and extending 
along the street for some distance, were ten or a dozen 
buildings badly shattered and with most of their windows 
demolished. From here a bombed area, about a hundred 
yards wide, extended back toward Covent Garden for 
about a quarter of a mile, the whole forming a rough 
parallelogram of devastation. Hotels, theatres, shops, 
and newspaper properties had all suffered, among them 
the offices and workrooms of the Morning Post. Small 
buildings were generally razed, others were perforated 



86 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

with great holes. A crater yawned where once was a 
street. In the entire section there wasn't a whole pane 
of glass. In one place a fragment of shell had penetrated 
a house, about twenty feet from the ground, and had cut 
off a water-pipe as neatly as if done by an iron- worker. 
Certain sections of the damaged area were roped off, 
and policemen stood on guard. These were sections 
from which a large army of searchers were bringing out 
the bodies of the dead. 

Many of the buildings looked as if they had suffered 
from fire, and such, in fact, was the case. But by this 
time the fire department had extinguished all conflagra- 
tions, with the exception of one at the comer of Burleigh 
and Exeter Streets. Here a bomb had plowed through 
the street and severed a gas-main, setting fire to the 
gas. This was still burning and continued to burn as 
long as I remained to watch it. This was the first raid 
that struck at the very heart of London. The nearest 
approach to such a thing before had been the Zeppelin 
raid of September 8th, which damaged certain parts of 
London and the manufacturing district of Bermondsey. 
At the latter place, nearly an acre of buildings was burned 
to the ground. 

Near the Morning Post Building I talked with one of 
the Royal Army Medical Corps — a friendly chap of 
between thirty-five and forty — who told me that twenty- 
nine bodies had been taken from the ruins, all of them 
being small shopkeepers, artisans and the like. He him- 
self had recovered nine. He generously offered to take 





Copyright, International Film Service, Inc. 

DESTRUCTION IN LONDON, ZEPPELIN RAID OF OCTOBER I3, 



I915 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 87 

me through the ropes and show me how to hunt for 
bodies. 

*' Just a minute," I said. '' You look tired and hungry. 
Have you had any breakfast ? " 

" Not since yesterday, sir." 

*' Come on over to this Pub and have a bite." I 
pointed to a near-by eating-and-drinking estabHshment, 
through whose shattered panes blew the four winds of 
heaven. 

'' Thank you very much, sir," he replied, as we headed 
for the Pub. 

" You look fagged, old man. Won't you have a bracer 
before your bite ? " I asked, as we entered the tap-room. 

" You're very kind, sir, but treating is forbidden." 

Impulsively I handed him a half-crown, with instruc- 
tions to " treat himself," which he proceeded to do in 
more thorough-going fashion than I expected. Four 
stiff whiskeys on an empty stomach precipitated the in- 
evitable. He passed swiftly from the realm of mundane 
things to the delights of a purely spirituous existence, to 
the accompaniment of " Tipperary," done in durable 
British bass. 

For this I blamed only myself. It v/as very stupid 
of me, because then and there I lost my cicerone and had 
to forego the anticipated pleasure of exhuming bomb vic- 
tims from sudden sepulchres. The next time I feel 
hospitable I shall feed the animals first — and lead them 
to strong waters afterwards. 

As to the number of bombs dropped in this particular 



88 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

section of the city, every one had a different guess. I 
heard all figures mentioned, from three to nine. The 
damage was variously estimated from half a million to 
six million dollars. I couldn't find out how large the 
bombs were; but from the terrible devastation I am in- 
clined to believe they must have weighed some hundreds 
of pounds. 

No one could be in doubt of the effect of such raids 
on London. Everywhere the city awaited the perils of 
the air with fortitude and calmness, ready to meet its 
fate in a spirit of quiet heroism. Seemingly, the only 
tangible result was to stimulate recruiting. On the morn- 
ing of the fourteenth the recruiting offices were fairly 
mobbed by applicants for enlistment. 

Among those to whom every modern war machine is 
a profound mystery, there were some, Allen declared, 
who didn't even know the difference between land and 
sea vehicles — a statement to which the reader may add 
as many grains of salt as he pleases. Such a one was 
the old woman that Allen had heard of, to whom an 
acquaintance was kindly explaining one day what to do 
in case the Zeppelins came. 

" Take to the cellar, my good woman," said he, " you'll 
surely be safe down there." 

" The cellar, ye say ? Indade ! That may save me 
from bombs and Zeppelins an' the likes, but what about 
thim turrible submarines ? " 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 

London — Gadabouts not Wanted — Swarthy Bulgarians — In- 
quisition at the Permit Office — Motor Trips — I Take Pas- 
sage Home on the New York. 

IT was during these days I discovered that if you 
happened to be only a simple tourist in the Tight 
Little Isle, and wanted to cross the English Chan- 
nel, you didn't cross ! You simply went down to the dock 
that lay nearest France, or Holland, and, after being 
thrust back by a burly officer in the King's uniform, you 
sat down on a pile of army blankets, tried to smile and 
cursed your luck under your breath. Also you gazed 
enviously at thousands of soldiers trudging aboard the 
steamer, bound for the front. At length it was borne 
in on you that you, a reasonably well-to-do and avowedly 
friendly American citizen, were about as welcome among 
these people as an epidemic of German measles. 

Further reflection convinced you that times had 
changed much in the first year of the war. I had realized 
on my previous visit that no longer did Europe welcome 
the coming and speed the parting American, not even if 
he was the kind of tourist who in the good old days had 
contributed so liberally to the finances of Europe, shed- 
ding money at every step and paying too much for every- 
thing. Now England, at least, could hardly tolerate the 

89 



90 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

mere tourist. She was fighting for her life. And the 
accommodations for visitors were so cramped that there 
wasn't even standing room for a gadabout. 

The only business I ostensibly had was confined to 
England. But in the hope of getting farther I have told 
that I had secured a passport which declared that I was 
going not only to England but also to France, Holland, 
Germany and Austria. This now proved a fatal mistake. 
In trying to make my way sure to all possible countries 
I over-reached myself, became an object of suspicion, and 
frustrated my own plans. 

I realized my mistake the day I went to the Permit 
Office, a rude temporary shed in the courtyard of one 
of the handsome government buildings known to the 
world as '' Downing Street." Here I found a number of 
civilians of all nationalities. Among them I remember 
particularly the retreating foreheads, high cheek-bones 
and broad, swarthy faces of two Bulgarians. They were 
trying to get back to their home-land ; Bulgaria was about 
to enter the war and these men were anxious to join the 
colors. I was told later that they got away just before 
their nation took the plunge. 

After waiting a time, my name was called and I was 
ushered into the next room. I sat down at a table, across 
which a pale, smiling official eyed me keenly, as I drew 
from my pocket my American passport. In exchange 
for this, which I handed him, he pushed a printed form 
toward me. 

" Fill this out," he said. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 91 

I inserted the details of my name, sex, age, place of 
birth, business, residence, and nationality. The smiling 
one thanked me and took the document in hand. Then, 
gazing at me like a musical show manager appraising a 
chorus girl, he noted the color of my eyes and hair, my 
stature and other physical aspects, and filled in these 
particulars on the printed form. 

It was a thorough, conscientious, painstaking piece of 
work. I felt uncomfortable. Mostly it was his courteous 
but indelible smile that annoyed me. Smiling all the 
while, the man turned me inside out, dissected me from 
head to foot, and finally put this up to me : 

" Do you think," he exclaimed, '' that the people over 
there want their railroads crowded with tourists when 
they need every available inch of space for troops? Don't 
you know that France is bleeding white?" 

I saw at once that my bluff about " Commercial Busi- 
ness," which was written on my passport, had been 
called. So it was with misgivings that I tottered to Offi- 
cial No. 2, to whom my first inquisitor consigned me. 

This individual, instead of smiling, glared at my pass- 
port. It bore the signature — " Robert Lansing, Secre- 
tary of State of the United States of America;" but 
judging by the look it got, it might as well have been 
signed ** Kaiser Wilhelm, Boss of the German Empire." 
I was again pumped and probed. The difficulty seemed 
to be that some one had notified the Permit Office of the 
fact that I had been in Berlin the year before — this 
information probably coming from some of the passen- 



92 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

gers on the St. Paul to whom I had disclosed the fact. 
And here was my stated intention to visit Germany again, 
and Austria, too! I was a suspicious character. One of 
the first questions my interrogator put to me was : 

" What was your business in Germany in November, 
last year? " 

I was flustered — and showed it — but I summoned 
courage enough to reply: 

" Oh, I just went over there on a lark." 

Then he made me give an entire account of my travels 
in 19 1 4, which I managed in a mumbled, jumbled way, 
with a red face and rather a bad case of " nerves." I 
am confident that the man believed me, although he did 
not like the looks of the words " Germany and Austria " 
on my passport. They made him still suspicious. 

" What people do you know in London ? " he asked. 
I mentioned some Americans and told him that I had a 
letter to our Embassy. 

*' Americans won't do," he said. " Give me the name 
of some British born subject, some influential, well-known 
resident. Otherwise you cannot have your permit to 
cross the Channel." 

For a while I cudgelled my brain in despair. Then 
suddenly I remembered that ten years before, when in 
Japan, I had become acquainted with a Londoner, Charles 
V. Sale, partner in Yokohama of my brother-in-law. I 
knew he was not now in the firm, but, silently praying 
that he might be in London, I looked up his name and 
address in the directory and was overjoyed to find them. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 93 

This being a satisfactory reference I was allowed to go. 
I instantly hunted up Sale and told him my story. Later 
he was interviewed and gave me the necessary " O. K.'' 

When I left Downing Street the official had told me : 
" The Office will take charge of your passport. And you 
will hear from us in a few days." 

Deprived of that valuable document, all I could do 
was to sit tight. So I sat tight — for ten days. All 
this time never a word from Downing Street. Fortu- 
nately there was nothing to prevent my taking several 
motor trips, on one of which I saw at some distance the 
German prison camp at Frimley, twenty miles from 
London. At other times I enjoyed the band music and 
the oratorical fireworks of the recruiting stands, which 
were sprinkled all over the city. 

Yet I felt uncomfortable. I wasn't " a man without 
a country," but I was a man without a passport, sneak- 
ing round among men, women and children of a war- 
racked nation, to whom life was very serious. An alien 
sightseer was an individual with whom they could have 
little in common. Yet in conversation they were always 
affable, and the expression I heard the oftenest was: 
" Oh, you know we think everything of the Americans." 

At last taking Allen's advice I decided to return to 
New York. On the 22nd of October I again went to 
the Permit Office and asked for my passport. The one 
who had grilled me said : 

" Please be patient. You will hear from us in a few 
days." 



94 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

" But I want to sail tomorrow on the 'New York for 
America," I ventured. His face lit up with relief. 

"Do you mean that?" he asked. "If you do, just 
sign this waiver of your application for a permit and I 
think you can have your passport." 

I signed a statement declaring my intention of leaving 
for the United States the next day. The official thrust 
his hand into the nearest drawer, hauled out my pass- 
port, and delivered it to me with more speed than British 
officials commonly show under the most urgent circum- 
stances. My relief in getting the document was scarcely 
greater than his in giving it to me. If the Yankee tour- 
ist was homesick, England was glad to get rid of him. 

But when I went back to Morley's to pack my grips, 
I found a letter from Downing Street, notifying me that 
my application had been provisionally granted! 

Perhaps I was foolish, but I stuck to my decision to 
go home. I had made all my plans, bought my ticket, 
and engaged my stateroom. Furthermore, my passport 
alluded to " Commercial Business " for which I could 
provide no corroborative documentary evidence, and I 
had had proof that it was unwise for one and the same 
passport to declare your intention of visiting countries at 
war with one another. I felt that I should be constantly 
in hot water, no matter what country I visited. Prob- 
ably the Continent, like Britain, was taking the war 
much more seriously than it had been taken a year ago. 
And I was in a mood to sympathize with the British in 
their attitude toward idle tourists with idle thoughts. 




Copyright, International News Service 

SEARCHLIGHTS ON CHARING CROSS STATION, LONDON, ON THE LOOK- 
OUT FOR ZEPPELINS 



■-^m 




Copyright, International Film Service, Inc. 

GERMAN PRISONERS AT FRIMLEY 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 95 

bent on idle journeys. For that reason the American 
liner New York sailed out of Liverpool on the evening of 
October 23rd with me on board. 

Though my trip as originally planned had been much 
curtailed, both in time and in territory, I was not dis- 
satisfied with it. I had been close to the biggest Zeppelin 
raid which the Germans have yet made on England. 
And I had had a chance to see — and I was glad to 
see — that although all the light, jaunty confidence of 
the year before had passed from the English, they were 
still confident, now with a fierce determination, that the 
Allies would win the war. 



Form Oa. 




Reference Number; 



MEMORANDUM. 



Your application ft>r a permit has been provisionally approved, and 
you are requested to apply in person at this oflRce whenever convenient, 
bringing your passport with you in order that the permit stamp may be 
affixed to it. Application can be made en route to the port of departure, 
if so desired. 

This notice must be presented at the door. 

Dateir^/«..iir 

Permit Office, 

C8480-S480) Wt. 8447»-84— 8000 W15 E.C.4 S. 128 DoWNING ST., S.W. 

APPLICATION FOR PERMIT TO CROSS THE CHANNEL APPROVED 



FLIGHT THE THIRD 
April i — May 22, 1916 



CHAPTER TWELVE 

Off for Bordeaux — " Torpedoitis " Rages Throughout the Ship 
— Chinese Colonials at Bordeaux Rouse Enthusiasm. 

READY as I had been to leave London, I couldn't 
help feeling a little " sore " at my failure to 
get to France. The more I thought of it as 
I was coming home on the steamer, the more determined 
I was to find some way of seeing whether that brave 
nation was still bearing her anxieties and sacrifices with 
the same heroic cheerfulness that she had shown in the 
first months of the war. There was no doubt about it; 
somehow I must get to France, and before very long, too. 
Within a week of my return from England I applied to 
William R. Hereford, Wall Street, New York, head of 
the '' American Ambulance Hospital in Paris," for a posi- 
tion as volunteer ambulance driver for service at the 
French front. But a few days later I received a cour- 
teous letter from him stating that '' the work is hard 
and requires so much endurance that I fear your age 
will bar you." Perhaps he was right, but I have always 
flattered myself that he was wrong, for I was in good 

96 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 97 

physical condition and, as I thought, possessed of suffi- 
cient endurance for the work. 

Undaunted by this disappointment, I remained bent 
on getting to France, and as the winter of 191 5- 16 came 
to a close I found an opportunity to go. My voyage 
began — appropriately, some may think — on " April 
Fool's Day," 19 16, when I started on the French liner 
Rochambeau from New York to Bordeaux. This time 
my passport designated my business to be " newspaper 
work," and to the work of representing the Dedham 
Transcript I again added correspondence for the Boston 
Transcript. Also my passport recited the fact that I was 
to visit France, England and Spain only. I knew better 
now than to include Germany and Austria. 

When I boarded the steamer in New York, I found 
that in the five months since I last sailed, regulations had 
tightened up still more. Now there was a thorough 
examination of luggage on the dock — not a heavy task 
for me, since I still carried only suit-case and Gladstone 
bag. At the gangway my passport was examined with 
the closest scrutiny, and I had to write my name on the 
back for a comparison of signatures. 

As the ship cast off there were the customary cheers 
and farewells, waving of French and American flags 
and the usual show of emotions accompanying the de- 
parture of voyagers for the War Zone. But now the war 
seemed closer than it did on either of my previous cross- 
ings, perhaps because there were among the passengers 
twenty college students who were about to enter the 



98 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

ambulance service in France. Then, too, there was a 
French boy of eighteen, just called to the colors, whose 
enthusiasm for the cause was contagious. And when 
we were five days out we were all lined up for a lifeboat 
drill. 

Without further event the voyage proceeded until the 
seventh day, when without warning the notice was 
posted on the bulletin-board — " By order of the Com- 
mander it is strictly forbidden to use any light." Excited 
passengers flocked to the board. " Submarines " immedi- 
ately became a topic of conversation. Pretty soon deck 
hands appeared and began to remove electric light bulbs. 
Even the private cabins were stripped. Orally we were 
notified not to light a match, and that we must refrain 
from smoking. Of course there was more or less alarm, 
not all confined to the women, either. One man who 
had a glass eye slipped it into his pocket. " The phos- 
phorus in the water might be reflected upon my artificial 
optic, and thus betray us," he gravely announced. I was 
glad that we had one humorist with us, for ttie ensuing 
laughter served to relieve the tension. 

Many of the passengers stayed on deck all night. 
Others crawled into their bunks with their clothes on, 
and life-preservers conveniently near. I got nervous 
myself, though I am not naturally fidgety. Like many 
of the rest I turned in fully clothed, with the exception 
of shoes, and with a life-belt tied about my waist. The 
nervousness of the others was catching; I actually got 
up four times and went on deck to " look for sub- 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 99 

marines '' — I, a sane, middle-aged citizen of the 
U. S. A., pattering round in stocking feet, girdled with 
a yard of cork wadding, and trying every now and then 
to bend my rotund shape over the rail so as to get a 
nice, head-on view of a red-hot German torpedo! When 
" torpedoitis " gets you, you do strange things. How- 
ever, as any one might have known, no missile reached 
us, since torpedoes, at that time, could only operate in 
daylight, never after dark. And so that night passed 
safely, and the following, till we entered the Gironde 
River. 

The official inspection of all persons entering France 
was thorough — a different thing from what it was in 
those happy days when Hotchkiss, Allen and I had so 
easily entered the country with the old " Dreadnaught." 
Now as we docked at Bordeaux, the passengers were all 
herded in the passageway near the dining-saloon, to 
to which they were admitted one at a time. When my 
turn came, I entered somewhat fearfully, for the un- 
yielding English inspectors of the previous autumn came 
vividly to my mind. Five stern-looking officials were 
seated at a table holding writing materials. I was asked 
to remove my hat and stand before them. For half a 
minute all five gave me their silent, undivided attention, 
making me feel like a cross between a pickpocket and a 
tax-dodger. Then I was asked to produce my passport. 
This one of the group carefully examined. The other 
four continued to bore me with their gimlet eyes. At 
last, being told that everything was all right, I with- 



loo A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

drew from the inquisitorial chamber with a great sense 
of reHef — I was to land in France — and with no more 
serious complications than a large loss of self-esteem 
and a softening of pride. Some others were not so fortu- 
nate. One man never did get permission to land, and one 
lady fainted during the ordeal. 

On our way up the river I had been much interested 
in the German prisoners, whom I had seen by hundreds 
all along the banks from the mouth of the Gironde, till- 
ing the soil and doing all sorts of manual labor for the 
benefit of France. Some of them waved good-humoredly 
at us, seemingly well content to be removed from the 
firing line. They were the happiest-looking prisoners I 
saw anywhere in my War-Zone gadding, and no wonder, 
for it was a beautiful spring day and all the country was 
white and pink with blossoms. 

When we got up to the city I was favored with a 
sight even more interesting — in fact to me one of the 
most impressive incidents of all my visits to the War 
Zone. Amid the *' hurrahs " of the populace and the 
booming of the Marseillaise I saw a flotilla of small 
boats conveying from a transport squads of foreign sol- 
diers. As they lined up on the dock, under orders of 
their commanding ofiicer, I was amazed to see that they 
were all Chinamen. 

Instantly the tremendous significance of the fact came 
over me. From Cochin-China, from Cambodia and 
Annam, from Tonquin, these Malays and Mongols of 
the Antipodes had answered the summons of France, 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT loi 

their foster mother. In the hour of her desperate need 
she had clothed them in a uniform and put a weapon in 
each hand. And they, Mohammedans and Buddhists, 
had answered the call of Christian France. Here at 
Bordeaux I saw them entering the last stage of their 
journey. They had come to mingle their alien blood 
with hers, to risk their lives with those of her native 
born, and face with her the Great Unknown at Verdun, 
at Soissons, in the Vosges. 

All sorts and conditions of colonials and other allies 
had already been dragged to France. At Nice I saw 
later large numbers of Serbians who had hurried to 
French soil to have another '' go " at the Boches who 
had dispossessed them. Near them were immense num- 
bers of Senegalese, such as I had previously seen at 
Dunkirk and Ypres, black as coals. At Cannes were 
Moors from Tunis, Berbers and Arabs from Algeria, 
Tuaregs from the Sahara, Malays from Madagascar. 
But to me the sight of these Mongolians, come from half 
way round the world, spoke more eloquently than any- 
thing else of the supreme need of their foster mother, 
and told me in convincing terms that the final issue of 
the world war would be determined on the western front. 
Not even the thousands of burly Russians, who landed 
at Marseilles amid the cheers and flower-throwing of the 
crowd, impressed me so significantly as did these stoical 
Chinese — seemingly so removed by every consideration 
of blood, race and religion — stepping resolutely toward 
the front beneath the tricolor of France. 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

Paris — Wonderful French Spirit — Student Artists — Dogged 
by Secret Service Men — American Benefactions — From the 
Tables at Monte Carlo to the Pews at Nice — Impressions of 
France. 

PARIS is ten hours by train from Bordeaux. Five 
courteous, chatty French officers, who shared 
my compartment, made the trip enjoyable. I 
felt I was among friends — so different from that jour- 
ney from Rotterdam to Berlin seventeen months before, 
when English was strictly " verboten." Yet here you 
could not say that conversation was exactly encouraged, 
for on this train I first saw the signs so common in all 
public places in France : 

" Taisez-vous ! Mefiez-vous ! Les oreilles ennemies 
vous ecoutent ! " 

" Keep silent ! Be on your guard ! Enemies' ears are 
listening to you! " 

Unfortunately the journey was at night, and so I had 
little chance to observe people, except my fellow passen- 
gers, or to notice whether the aspect of the country 
seemed different from the normal aspect of peace. I 
was rather disappointed, for in my " Dreadnaught " trip 
to France we had done all our traveling in the car, and 
so I should have liked now a little railroad traveling by 

102 




Copyright, International News Service 

RESERVISTS ARRIVING AT GARE DE l'eST, PARIS, I916 



TAISEZ-VOnS ! 

MfiFIEZ-VOUS! 

LES OREILLES EHWEMIES 
VOnS ECOBTEMT 

Preacription de la Circulaire du Miniatre de la Cruerre 
en date du 28 octobre i9i5. 



SIGN COMMON IN ALL PUBLIC PLACES IN FRANCE 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 103 

daylight. But when you are in a country that has been 
engaged in a serious war for nearly two years, you 
needn't be surprised if you are not allowed a wide choice 
in trains. 

At Paris a delightful comrade awaited me, Charles H. 
Fiske, Jr., a Boston attorney, with whom any pleasure 
shared is a pleasure doubled. We made the same hotel 
our headquarters and returned together to New York 
on the steamship La Fayette. 

At our Paris hotel, the Vouillemont, in the Rue Boissy 
d'Anglas, I found conditions much as they had been at 
the Hotel Burgundy, where I had put up a year and a 
half ago with Hotchkiss, except that now the authorities 
insisted on knowing a good many more details about my 
life. But I was getting quite glib by this time with per- 
sonal statistics, and so I had little trouble in making out 
a long, detailed statement as to my identity, business, 
length of stay, and, in short, the " story of my life " — 
past, present and future — for the benefit of the police 
and military. On leaving, another, almost as formi- 
dable, had to be made out. The next thing was to obtain 
from the Commissaire de Police the " permis de sejour," 
for which I had to provide a full description and a photo- 
graph of myself. This " permis " one must always have 
by him. For at any time or place one is liable to be 
stopped by any kind of a Frenchman, in uniform or not, 
and made to produce it. 

I left the spring behind me at Bordeaux. Though 
the trees in Paris were in leaf, the weather was abomi- 



104 A W'AR ZONE GADABOUT 

nable, cloudy and wet and raw — not unusual Parisian 
weather in April, I have since been told, though at the 
time I heard it attributed to the heavy cannonading at 
Verdun. Yet despite the rain, and occasionally sleet, 
the streets were crowded. There was a complete trans- 
formation from the Paris of November, 19 14, when it 
was grim, solemn, almost despondent; it seemed to me 
now the old Paris, cheerful, and even gay. Entertain- 
ments were numerous and lively. The spirit of the 
French surely was wonderful. Yet I felt underneath a 
steady current of sadness. Hundreds of maimed soldiers 
walked the streets, many, with a leg gone, hobbling on 
crutches or stumping about on a wooden leg, many others 
blind, led by the hand of some comrade more fortunate. 
Yet the French were clearly hopeful. That is why 
covering the heart-aches were the smiles. Behind wound 
and scar glowed the flame of confident patriotism. 

On my first day I went to the Place des Invalides to 
see the captured German artillery there, German aero- 
planes, and other trophies of war. They all showed hard 
usage. But there were other trophies of the War God 
in Paris. All too frequently you saw the flag-draped 
coflin, behind which walked the militar)^ and the sorrow- 
ing relatives. Paris was full of such pictures. 

On my way back from the Invalides I visited the Ecole 
des Beaux Arts on the Seine. Practically all of the three 
thousand student artists here had gone to the front, 
where a scheme had been devised to give an opportunity 
to those who needed it to make some money. Registered 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 105 

cards, the size of post-cards, were sent them in the 
trenches or at the base in the rear. After drawing or 
painting sketches on them, these cards were sent back to 
Paris and offered to the public at two and a half francs 
each. Each artist was limited to ten pictures a week; 
and only the poor artists were allowed to sell them. I 
understood that some of them made the maximum of 
one hundred francs a month. The fifty cards I bought 
are among my treasured souvenirs. 

I also bought half a dozen French casques, or helmets, 
of the shrapnel-proof variety, an English helmet of 
similar make, a gas mask and goggles, some of the shells 
from the famous " 75's " and a couple of hand grenades. 
Any one who suffered like me from the souvenir habit 
could then make plenty of such purchases in many of the 
shops in Paris. 

Everywhere, in every nook and corner of the country, 
the French were carefully protecting themselves against 
enemy espionage. One day, on the Boulevard Capucines, 
a mild-spoken individual in civilian attire accosted me, 
saying that he was of the secret service, and demanded 
my " permis de sejour." I showed it to him without 
hesitancy. 

Then he said : " You were overheard this morning 
speaking German to another person. Why do you speak 
in German ? " 

"Say, my friend, whoever told you that is a liar!'* 
I indignantly replied. " I couldn't speak German if I 
tried.'' 



io6 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

"Pardon, m'sieu! It ees a mistake?" He bowed 
courteously and left me. 

I am perfectly well convinced that his accusation that 
I had been overheard speaking German was merely a 
trap which these secret service men spring haphazard 
on all strangers, in the hope of catching some unwary 
person who is actually a spy. They reason that the sus- 
pect may jump at the conclusion that " the jig is up " and 
confess his identity. 

Another time I was looking across the Seine, watching 
some workmen breaking stone with a sledge hammer. I 
hadn't been there two minutes before a gendarme saun- 
tered up and stationed himself right behind me. He wore 
the same inquisitorial look the officials on the steamer 
had bestowed upon me. I felt uncomfortable, and pres- 
ently hailed a taxi and drove to my hotel. The gendarme 
followed, close behind. Later in the day I was told that 
he reached the hotel just after me, and made a searching 
inquiry into my identity and business in Paris. 

Again, the day I left Bordeaux for New York, I wrote 
out the cablegram : " Sailing La Fayette Saturday." I 
was requested to leave out the word " Saturday." The 
information as to the sailing day might have reached and 
benefited the enemy. 

All this was perfectly right. If neutrals and friends 
were inconvenienced by such precautions they needn't 
stay in France. 

If their necessary strictness makes French officials 
seem sometimes unfriendly to Americans, not so the 




SOUVENIRS, 19 14, '15, '16 
German Artillery Officer's Helmet — German Infantry Overcoat — French 
General's Cap — French Helmet — Piece of Shell — French Private's 
Cap — Case for Gas Mask — Ghurka Knife — 75 cm. Shell — Gas Mask 
and Goggles — Turkish Sword — Hand Grenade — Wicker Basket for 
Carrying German Shell — Case for German Helmet. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 107 

French people. All over Paris I was gratified to hear 
the exclamations, " Vive TAmerique ! Vivent les Etats 
Unis ! " These exclamations reflect the profound grati- 
tude of France for the tremendously helpful relief work 
done there by Americans. First in importance is the 
" American War Relief Clearing House," for through 
this must pass all the donations to France and other 
Allies. The largest piece of individual work done in 
France is that of the " American Distributing Service," 
supported by Mrs. Robert W. Bliss. Then there is 
the highly important " American Fund for French 
Wounded," supported by numerous committees in Amer- 
ica. And there are scores of other charitable enterprises 
scattered throughout Paris and France. 

It is only a fraction of the benefit of all this labor 
of love that hospitals receive. Refugees from the terri- 
tory occupied by the Germans, and others, whom the 
war has impoverished, owe many a life to their Ameri- 
can friends working through the " Ouvroir Franco- 
Beige," the " Vestiaire Franco-Beige," the " Appui aux 
Artistes," and " Mon Soldat." And many children have 
had the tragedies of war softened for them as much as 
possible by the " Enfants de Flandres " and the " Enfants 
de la Frontiere." 

Of all these charities none interested me more than 
the " Phare," or " Lighthouse," which brings light to 
those in darkness. Within its kindly walls men blinded in 
battle, whose life is now a living death, find courage and 
hope awaiting them. Here men in the deepest despond- 



io8 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

ency are brought back to a measure of usefulness and 
joy in life. They weave, knit socks, make baskets and — 
they even fence for exercise. I v^as also much interested 
by the " Boston Room " at the American Ambulance, so 
called because the large room is supported entirely by 
Boston subscriptions. I found it full of cots and 
v^ounded soldiers, among them the brother of Navarre, 
the famous French air fighter, who was convalescing 
from severe wounds. And there I saw the worst case in 
any of the hospitals I visited in the war countries — a 
soldier with both eyes and arms gone. He could only 
be consoled by putting flowers on his chest to smell. It 
was the only case, they said, of a soldier who actually 
wanted to die. 

From Paris I decided to take a run down to Nice in 
order to see a cousin of mine who makes her home in 
that city, a lady whom I had not had the pleasure of 
seeing for several years. Before starting I had to get 
a " sauf conduit," which again described me in some 
detail. This, like the " permis de sejour," I had to keep 
on my person for immediate surrender whenever 
demanded. 

My train was full of wounded soldiers whose desti- 
nation was the same as mine, for the Riviera is as good 
a place as any in France for convalescents to regain their 
strength. Again most of my journey was at night, and 
so again I saw little of the country. I stopped over a 
few hours at Marseilles, but it was not a day when 
Russians were landing, or troops from any of the colo- 














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A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 109 

nies, and so the city showed fewer signs of the war 
than I had seen at Paris and Bordeaux. 

On arriving at Nice I found that those of the once 
large American colony who had remained there were all 
" doing their bit " to help France in her titanic struggle, 
and doing it nobly, too. My cousin was spending several 
hours of the day in the American Red Cross Hospital, 
which, with its fifty beds, has done a splendid work 
under the direction of Mrs. Dulany Huntress. 

From all that I had heard of the famous city of the 
Riviera, which I had never seen before, I judged that it 
was sadly changed from the lively winter resort of peace 
times. Comparatively few foreign visitors remained in 
the place — among them, of course, no Germans or 
Austrians at all. The wounded were everywhere and 
the streets were thronged with soldiers, especially Ser- 
bians. But the city in its gayest days could never have 
seen better weather — the greatest relief after the beastly 
conditions of Paris. Here the air was mild and the sun 
bright, flowers were in bloom, and the orange-trees laden 
with fruit. 

One evening I persuaded my cousin to motor over 
with me to Monte Carlo. After dinner at the Hotel de 
Paris we crossed to the Casino. Because I, unlike my 
cousin, had no regular card of admission, the five owl- 
faced officials at the door insisted on seeing my passport, 
which they stared at so long and searchingly that I 
began to think the Casino as difficult to enter as France 
itself. However, they evidently made up their minds 



no A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

that I was an innocent lamb ready for the slaughter, so 
I was given my entrance card and led to the shambles. 

The stern hand of Mars had extinguished, at least 
temporarily, the glory of Monte Carlo. Barring myself, 
there were virtually no tourists *' war-zoning." In the 
large, ornate halls of the Casino only three roulette tables 
were in action, and only about seventy-five people were 
present. It was the smallest attendance, my cousin said, 
that she had ever seen, even during the war, though to 
be sure, since that had broken out she had been to 
Monte Carlo very seldom. Of course I did exactly as 
I was expected to do. I wagered a little of my good 
Yankee resources on the turn of the wheel, lost with 
monotonous regularity, and quit when I had reached my 
modest limit of fifty francs. This was the first time I 
had ever played roulette, and probably it will remain my 
last. I departed without having any medals urged upon 
me as a Napoleon of Finance. 

As an antidote to Monte Carlo, we attended on Easter 
Sunday the services at the American Episcopal Church 
in Nice. I was particularly delighted to find that the 
rector, Rev. Francis G. Burgess, is a brother of Theodore 
P. Burgess of my home town. 

Before I left Paris I had made application to the 
War Department to be allowed to visit the front, but on 
my return I found that in spite of the recommendation 
of good friends at the Embassy, I could not get the 
coveted permission. Evidently the bombardment I had 
witnessed between Ypres and Roulers was to be my 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT iii 

closest acquaintance with the fighting-line. And so, since 
my friend, Mr. Fiske, was about to sail from Bordeaux 
on the La Fayette, I decided to return to America with 
him. Mr. Bliss of the Embassy obligingly smoothed the 
way for me, and I boarded the steamer on the thirteenth 
of May without answering excessively personal inquisi- 
torial questions again, or even having my luggage 
examined. 

I sailed for home more in love than ever with La Belle 
France. Words are inadequate to express my admira- 
tion for her confident, cheerful, sternly determined en- 
durance. As the steamer backed out of the dock, I felt 
if possible even more convinced than on my previous 
visit that the day was not far distant when France, tri- 
umphant and glorious, purged by fire and blood, would 
take a loftier, more illustrious seat among the Sisterhood 
of Nations than she has occupied for years. 



FLIGHT THE FOURTH 
October i8 — December 21, 19 16 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

Breaking and Entering Russia — Stowaway Proves to be Ger- 
man Officer — Preparing to Run the Gauntlet of the Frontier. 

GETTING into and out of Russia in war time 
is — or rather was the other day, before the 
Revolution — a good deal like getting in and 
out of a pair of old-fashioned, cowhide boots. There's a 
lot of lusty pulling at the straps and plenty of vigorous 
tugging at the boot-jack. 

The pulling and tugging take place at the frontier. 
It is here you encounter the entertaining Muscovite in- 
spector, engaged in the leisurely business of quizzing the 
traveler, examining his papers, probing his luggage and, 
at times, subjecting him to the doubtful pleasure of a 
compulsory bath in caustic chemicals. Although the pro- 
gram is utterly tedious, under the circumstances the 
entertainer has no trouble whatever in *' holding " his 
audience. 

However, after you're in, you can be quite as com- 
fortable, quite as foot-loose, so to say, knocking about 
in the roomy realm of the Czar as you would be in 

112 



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A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 113 

shuffling round in a pair of grandfather's copper-toed 
cast-offs, of the vintage of 1842. Of course Petrograd 
police rules may occasionally tread on your corns and 
Moscow officialdom dull the polish of your triumphal 
progress. But, on the whole, the Innocent Abroad — if 
he is innocent — may romp or traffic all over the Slavic 
domain (with the exception of the War Zone) without 
even stubbing the itinerant toe; and, departing, leave 
behind him many a widely mourned footprint in the all 
but abandoned path of Tourist Travel. 

But the pulling and tugging, the backing and filling, 
the starting and stopping, the probing and prodding and 
parleying and procrastinating on entering or leaving 
Russia are so full of color and incident that I'm tempted 
to title this chapter *' Snaring the Spy at the Czar's Front 
Doors." 

On my return to New York from Bordeaux on the 
steamer La Fayette, I had met a young lady from Balti- 
more who had recently been in Russia doing Red Cross 
^vork. Her glowing accounts of that country tempted 
me to visit it in the fall. So October 18, 191 6, found 
me on board the Scandinavian liner Frederik VIII — 
since become famous as the ship in which the German 
Ambassador was sent home — bound for Copenhagen, 
via Christiansand and Christiania. I was ostensibly cor- 
respondent again for two American papers. I also bore 
letters to our Ambassador to Russia, Ex-Governor 
Francis of Missouri, and letters from Governor McCall 
and others to several well known Russian gentlemen, 



114 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

friends of the late Ambassador, Curtis Guild, whose 
death was greatly lamented in Petrograd. 

A friend of mine, who had just been to Korea, strongly 
advised against my taking this trip. In both China and 
Japan he had heard all sorts of alarming stories about 
the difficulties not only of getting in, but of getting out. 
" You probably will get in," he said, " but any one whose 
advice is worth anything will tell you you cannot get out 
until after the war. The government won't have any 
leaks." 

Even my brother was alarmed, but my wife was loyal 
and permitted me to go without a murmur. I asked her 
to come along with me, but she said : " I wouldn't cross 
that North Sea for a million dollars." She was suffer- 
ing from " submarinitis." 

Passport regulations and luggage examination I found 
stiff er than ever. Nobody seemed to be traveling now 
except such as absolutely had to. Things were certainly 
tightening up for the War Zone gadabout. Practically 
all my fellow passengers were Scandinavian-Americans 
or Russians. 

All boats bound for Norway, Sweden and Denmark 
were required to stop at Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands 
for a thorough examination of passengers and cargo. 
We arrived without incident in the beautiful harbor of 
Kirkwall, landlocked by islands, with low-lying hills and 
with every available inch of ground carefully cultivated. 
We anchored a mile from the town, a red-tiled village, 
with its kirk of St. Magnus rising above it. No sooner 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 115 

had we dropped anchor than a company of officers and 
blue-jackets boarded the ship, all armed with guns, and 
began their minute inspection of passengers' letters and 
personal effects. While this was going on, a strange 
figure emerged from one of the forward hatchways, and 
was promptly seized by two of the blue-jackets. He 
proved to be a German stowaway, who thought we had 
arrived at Christiansand and had come out of his hiding- 
place. However, he took his arrest philosophically, even 
jokingly, and offered to stand treat in the smoking-room 
for the officers and men. He was an officer in the Ger- 
man army and had made this desperate attempt to get 
back to the Fatherland. 

Every bit of our mail was taken off at Kirkwall and 
sent to London to be censored before forwarding. This 
and other precautions, which added to our delay, the 
passengers bore good-naturedly, recognizing that if in- 
convenient to themselves they were necessary for the pro- 
tection of Great Britain. In all we stayed at Kirkwall 
two days. My Virginia smoking tobacco was so much 
appreciated by the blue-jackets, with whom I made 
friends, that on my return trip they reciprocated by 
giving my baggage the scantiest possible inspection. 

The trip across the North Sea was uneventful. In 
spite of the most vigilant lookout for submarines, not a 
vessel of any description was sighted. After stopping 
three hours at Christiansand, we arrived on November 
2nd at Christiania, where we all debarked. I left Cliris- 
tiania on the 5th for Stockholm, a night's run by train. 



ii6 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

The first stage of my journey was ended. I had reached 
the threshold of Russia. And here on the threshold I 
almost gave up the trip. In the four days which I spent 
at Stockholm, asking advice of various people as to how 
to get in and out of Russia, reports were most dis- 
couraging. 

The manager of my hotel told me that I couldn't take 
a scrap of writing with me across the frontier, except my 
passport; that I must send all my letters by mail to my 
hotel in Petrograd — even my letter of credit. 

''My letter of credit? Send that by mail? I guess 
not,'' I rejoined. '' That's my money, my bread-and- 
butter, ril not trust that to the mails." 

" Well, even if you take it, and get into Russia, God 
have mercy on your soul! You'll be interned for the 
remainder of the war ! " 

And in this strain he continued to harp away, as 
cheerful as the Dead March from " Saul." 

In spite of these unhappy prophecies, which were 
duplicated by the utterances of the Russian consul at 
Stockholm, and which also had been made by the Russian 
consul at New York, I determined to proceed, taking all 
my papers with me. I even added a tourist guide book 
to Russia and a Baedeker of Sweden. Later I found that 
had I followed my landlord's advice and mailed my 
papers and letter of credit, I shouldn't have received 
them for at least two or three weeks, owing to 
the delays of the censorship. Petrograd being in the 
War Zone, only one of the fifty post-cards which I sub- 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 117 

sequently mailed from there reached its destination — 
and that on February 10, 191 7, although I sent it Novem- 
ber 14, 19 1 6. A cablegram to my brother, dated Novem- 
14, 19 16, merely announcing my safe arrival, has not 
been delivered yet. 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

Herding Men like Cattle in Russian Pens — Apples for 
" Bombs " — Chemical Baths to Lay Bare Invisible Writing 
on Suspected Backs. 

ON the night of November 9th I left Stockholm 
by train, not without misgivings. I didn't 
knov^ a word of Swedish or Russian. I was 
alone among strangers, bound for a forbidden goal, laden 
with papers that I was told were contraband. But I 
chirked up a bit when I discovered half a dozen English- 
men on board, and a few Scandinavians. Among the 
latter was a splendid chap, Thomas Oye, a Norwegian 
business man, with whom I became quite " clubby." 

The usual way from Stockholm to Petrograd is 
straight across the Baltic Sea and up the Gulf of Fin- 
land; but on account of mines and submarines travelers 
now had to go to Petrograd by rail round the Gulf of 
Bothnia. 

On the nth — which happened to be my birthday — 
we arrived at the village of Haparanda, the far-flung 
outpost of Sweden, fifteen miles from the Arctic Circle. 
I found it a small, neat town, with wooden buildings, 
nearly all painted red, and a Lutheran church bearing 
the date 1828. 

Examination of our passports and luggage was made 

118 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 119 

by the Swedish authorities, without undue delay. Then 
at eleven o'clock we were herded together under an 
escort of soldiers and marched across a frozen marsh 
to an island in the Tornea River. Here was a small 
settlement, surrounded by a stout stockade. Through 
a gate in this stockade we were marched single file, sur- 
rendering our passports to a bewhiskered Ivan, in a long 
khaki overcoat and the biggest gray astrakhan cap I ever 
saw in my life. Once inside that formidable gate we 
were on Russian soil, and, with our passports surren- 
dered, we couldn't return if we wanted to. 

In a small, cheerless waiting-room, rough-built out of 
unplaned boards, we were cooped up like steers in a 
branding-pen from eleven in the morning until four in 
the afternoon. Over a rude counter at one side two Slav 
women bartered coffee and rolls for Russian kopecks or 
Swedish ore. Just outside, a small open yard provided 
the most shockingly inadequate sanitary conveniences, 
or inconveniences, I have ever seen. Soldiers on guard 
prevented any one from straying over a hundred feet 
from the building. 

The only break in the monotony came about noon, 
when a uniformed official appeared at the door. 

** Owsteen, Owsteen ! " he shouted. 

In this I recognized my well garbled surname, and 
forged to the front. With me went two Englishmen, 
who had also been summoned. Entering an adjoining 
room, we were seated at a long, wooden table. A printed 
slip, containing a score or more of questions, was handed 



I20 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

to us, with a request for written answers. These queries, 
under the circumstances, were entirely pertinent and 
reasonable. But the English was at times weird. One 
question read: " What subjection?" Turning to one of 
the Englishmen, I asked, " What does that mean ? " He 
had barely time to reply, '' That means ' what country 
are you a subject of,' " when an official stepped up and 
tapped me on the shoulder, saying very pleasantly, " No 
talking, please." 

After filling out our slips we returned to the waiting- 
room, whence others were summoned for the ordeal of 
the written examination. 

At four o'clock, examinations (over, we were all 
marched down the street of this little settlement, trudg- 
ing along the middle of the road, with soldiers hemming 
us in, for all the world like a parcel of war prisoners. 
At length we reached a dock and went aboard a small 
steamer, which soon got under way and ferried us across 
the river, where ice breakers had made a passage, to the 
railroad station in the town of Tornea. 

In the railroad yard our attention was directed to a 
great heap of luggage from which each passenger was 
requested to sort out and identify his own. This had 
been transported from Haparanda over the frozen river 
by reindeer sledges. With some trepidation I picked 
out my suit-case and Gladstone bag and carried them to 
the nearest official for inspection. In violation of the 
instructions of the Russian consul in Stockholm, I had 
in my bag a dozen letters, guide books and my letter of 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 121 

credit. But I had left them in plain sight, right on top, 
resolving that if I was arrested, it at least would not be 
on the charge of " concealing contraband." 

The burly, taciturn inspector opened the suit-case, ran 
his hand carelessly through the clothing to the bottom, 
closed it and marked it " O. K." — or the Russian 
equivalent therefor. Then he opened the bag. Lying as 
they did right on top, he could do nothing less than con- 
fiscate the books, papers and letters. The whole exami- 
nation didn't take two minutes. " What an idiot I am," 
thought I. "I might have concealed the things and he'd 
never have troubled to unearth them! " 

After seizing the contraband the official gave me a 
quick scrutiny. In each of my overcoat pockets he de- 
tected a suspicious bulge. He felt them. Round ! " Ah 
ha," his eyes telegraphed, " bombs ! " He thrust a hand 
in each, and fished out — two apples ! Then he laughed. 
Feeling like Eve, I offered him the historic lure. And 
the modern Adam fell. " Thankski," said he, or words 
to that effect, as he bit into one voraciously. At fifty 
kopecks (seventeen cents) each, an apple in Russia to- 
day is as much a luxury as Russian caviar on Broadway. 

Munching the fruit course, he stamped off to the 
censor's room. I waited about fifteen minutes and was 
then summoned to follow him. In this room sat an 
impressive military officer, all red and blue and buttons 
and braid. On a table in front of him were my papers 
and letters and the two books. In very intelligible Eng- 
lish he asked me what the letters were. I told him they 



122 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

were letters of introduction and other credentials show- 
ing my business in Russia. Three of them he ran 
through hurriedly, paying no attention to the rest. Most 
impressive to him, apparently, was the document signed 
by the Governor of Massachusetts, with its great seal 
of the Commonwealth and enough blue silk to make a 
generous hair-ribbon for an eight-year-old schoolgirl. 

To the two books he paid particular attention, turning 
the leaves slowly and bending back the covers, as if he 
would determine whether or not they held hidden writ- 
ings. Later I found that one English lady had with her 
a Bible, one that had belonged to her mother, and was 
valued for sentiment. This harmless keepsake excited 
the suspicions of the censor, who tore off and retained 
the covers and handed back the leaves to the owner. I 
was more fortunate. Within five minutes the officer 
passed to me all my books and papers, unmutilated, and 
with a smile said he was very glad to allow me to pro- 
ceed to Petrograd. I at once boarded the train, exultant, 
and was delighted to find that Oye was assigned to the 
same compartment, where, as a last bit of red tape, our 
passports, taken up at the island in the river, were re- 
turned to us, properly vised. 

My own good fortune was not duplicated by all. While 
the luggage examination had been proceeding in the shed, 
I noticed that six men and one woman were apparently 
having difficulty with the officials, who were pulling out 
all kinds of personal effects, prying into each garment, 
opening linings, probing soles and heels of shoes, and 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 123 

making a great to-do over every article that might har- 
bor contraband. 

Finally after the luggage had been dissected and dis- 
membered, the six men and the woman, plainly a Jewess, 
were ushered to booths, where they were disrobed and 
their clothing subjected to the minutest inspection. They 
were also compelled to take baths in which chemicals 
were said to have been mixed with the water, to lay bare 
on their persons any invisible writing that might have 
been inscribed thereon. In Russia a suspicious sleuth will 
bare everything and anything, from your immortal soul 
to a floating rib! 

From this ordeal only the woman emerged safely. 
The men failed to pass muster and were detained. The 
woman told us later, on the train, that the woman in- 
spector even combed her hair, to see if it contained 
contraband ! 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

A Unitarian Catechism — Petrograd to Moscow in Defiance of 
Orders — The Royal Suite at $35 a Night — No Writing Can 
Pass the Frontier. 

AT Uleaborg, on the way to Petrograd, we had 
our passportis again examined, and were 
again catechized. One of the questions, " Who 
were your grandmothers on both sides before they were 
married?" had me guessing. For the life of me I 
couldn't remember just at the minute. And I told the 
inspector so, frankly. He laughed. " Very few of them 
do remember," he said. 

There was another inspection at Bieloostrow, the 
frontier between Finland and Russia. Here the official, 
speaking in French, said, " 1 cannot speak English," and 
asked me if I spoke French. '' Very little," I replied. 
'' Can you speak German? " he said. " Not at all," said 
I, although that was not quite true. 

He then asked me to read in English the list of ques- 
tions to which I had written answers. I did so, and he 
promptly passed me. I found out later that he was really 
an Englishman, and that he had asked me to read the 
answers to see if my accent betrayed German birth. If 
my speech had revealed a Teutonic flavor it might have 
gone hard with me. It is a serious misdemeanor to 

124 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 125 

speak German in Russia nowadays. Conviction means a 
penalty of 3,000 roubles or three months in jail. How- 
ever, this did not deter me from later giving- orders to 
the hotel chambermaid in Petrograd in German, when I 
found that was the only tongue common to both of us. 

At another stopping-place, having set down my religion 
as " Unitarianism," I was asked to explain its tenets. I 
never was strong on theology anyway, but when that 
black-whiskered Slav plumped this query at me, for the 
life of me I couldn't muster a single Article of Faith. 
I stammered out something about Fatherhood of God and 
Brotherhood of Man. 

" Ah ! " he boomed, " that's my religion, too. You 
may pass ! " And I '^ passed " — to my own great relief 
and his. 

At another place, the official asked me what was the 
circulation of the Dedham Transcript. 

" Immense," I promptly answered, and was as 
promptly passed. With the temperamental Slav, glow- 
ing adjectives are more effective than dull statistics. 

Arriving in Petrograd at midnight, my passport was 
taken in charge by the police as soon as I stepped foot 
in my hotel, and a temporary receipt issued therefor. I 
found that the law required that a person intending to 
leave Russia must notify the police and surrender his 
passport for the necessary vise or permission to leave. 
The regulations prescribed that it be held one week by 
the police, then returned to the owner, who is required 
to depart within twelve days from that date. By sur- 



126 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

rendering my passport at once, and giving notice of 
intention to leave, I should still have nineteen days — 
ample enough — for transacting my '' business." And 
so I at once gave the necessary notification. 

At the end of a week my passport was returned, with 
the customary announcement of the bearer's intended 
return to the frontier in twelve days. With a twelve-day 
margin at my disposal, I immediately held a caucus with 
myself on the subject of going to Moscow. The vote to 
take the trip was unanimous. To Moscow therefore I 
would go. But, on revealing my plan to the American 
consul, he promptly cast one perfectly good ballot in 
the negative. 

" See here," he told me. " You've asked the police, 
officially, for permission to leave the country. And now, 
the minute you get your passport back, you go hiking off 
in exactly the opposite direction, to Moscow. When 
you get to Moscow you'll have to have your passport 
vised, and then later, when you come to leave Russia, 
they'll want to know why, after asking to leave the coun- 
try, you deliberately proceeded to take a trip into the in- 
terior. It is all very irregular, and is liable to get you 
into trouble." 

This was somewhat disturbing. I had visions of being 
arrested and roughly poked off into some remote comer 
of Siberia, where, I felt sure, the climate would never 
agree with me. Yet to leave Russia without having seen 
Moscow was unthinkable. So I hired an interpreter and 
talked with him. After hearing my troubles he looked 



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A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 127 

worried, but later said, " I think I can fix it all right." 
And so I started for Moscow. 

After a fourteen-hour journey, nearly all in the dark, 
we reached the ancient capital of Russia. Arriving at 
the hotel, the National, the interpreter asked for my pass- 
port. In a half -hour he returned, waving the bit of paper 
gleefully. I looked at it. 

" But there's no vise on it," said I. 

" Of course not," said he. 

"What do you mean?" 

" The hotel manager has been persuaded to do you a 
favor. He did not send the passport to the police. Con- 
sequently there is no Moscow vise on it. Thus you can 
leave Russia without the officials knowing you have been 
in Moscow at all." 

" And the price of this favor?" I asked. 

" Twenty-five roubles," gravely replied the guide. 

I never parted with money so gleefully, and I never 
made an investment that yielded so large a joy dividend 
as did the $8.33 with which I purchased immunity from 
the dreams of detention, arrest, conviction and Siberian 
exile which had haunted me for two days and nights. 

My twenty-four-hour hotel accommodations in Mos- 
cow, by the way, offered an amusing contrast. When I 
arrived, the hotel was full, a very common condition now 
in Petrograd and Moscow hotels, since each city shelters 
so many more inhabitants than in peace times, because 
of the many refugees from Poland and other parts of 
Russia. The proprietor apologetically consigned me to 



128 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

the only available apartment, a small public bathroom on 
the second floor, costing four roubles per day. Here a 
cot was made up and I got what rest I could in the 
narrow quarters, feeling a good deal like a belated arrival 
at a White Mountain hotel in the month of August. 

From even this humble boudoir I was roused at the 
crack of dawn the next day. So I sought out my guide 
and again told him my troubles and mentioned my 
roubles. (I was beginning to learn that in Russia a 
rouble will nearly always knock the " T " out of Trouble.) 
That evening I was informed by the manager that an- 
other, and more commodious, chamber craved my pres- 
ence. Whereupon I was ushered to the most select por- 
tion of the house, where, with a flourish, the manager 
opened a door and followed me into a most sumptuous 
drawing-room, crowded with Louis XVI furniture, a 
piano, elaborate chandeliers, and all the luxuries of a 
millionaire. From it opened a bedroom with two mag- 
nificent beds and other equally gorgeous furnishings, and 
a large bathroom. 

''Whose is this?" I asked. 

" This is the apartment of state, occupied last night 
by his Royal Highness, the Grand Duke Michael Alex- 
androvitch, brother of the Czar," said the manager. 

My rapid promotion from public bathroom to ducal 
suite took my breath away. 

"And the price?" I asked, after I had got my 
second wind. 

" One hundred roubles a day, m'sieur." 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 129 

I felt like asking him the rate per hour, as more in 
keeping with my purse, but refrained. However, I en- 
gaged the apartment for the minimum period — one day. 
I suppose a Yankee siesta on the couch of a real grand 
duke is worth $35. 

On November 29th I left Petrograd for Stockholm, 
traveling the same route by which I had come. As it is 
positively forbidden to take any writing out of the coun- 
try, even blank paper, I had to leave behind every scrap 
of writing, including my travel notes. Again I had the 
pleasure of my good friend Oye's company. Along the 
line we underwent the same examination and inspections. 
But as before, my luggage received only the most casual 
attention. I had great good fortune, it would seem, for 
again several of my fellow passengers failed to pass the 
barrier and were sent back to Petrograd. 

At Tornea, arriving at two in the afternoon, we found 
it pitch black and hailing. The river was frozen soHd, 
and the crossing had to be made on sledges drawn by 
reindeer. When I got to Haparanda and once more 
stepped on Swedish soil, I had a feeling of distinct relief. 
I was out of a belligerent, and in a neutral nation. Yet 
I have never had more kindly or courteous treatment in 
any land than I received in Russia. I used to think the 
French were unsurpassed in courtesy — this especially 
impressed me during the two trips I have made to their 
country since the war began — but the Russians I found 
in this respect quite their equals. 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 

Petrograd — " Kwass " Displaces Vodka — Food Shortage Acute 
— Religious Fervor of the Russian Soldier. 

DURING the three weeks that I was in Russia — 
from November nth to December ist, 1916 
— I had abundant opportunity to look about 
in Petrograd and Moscow, talk with residents and have 
the daily newspapers read to me by an interpreter. As 
a result of tliese observations, I arrived at three conclu- 
sions : first, that the Russian masses were completely 
emancipated from the tyranny of King Alcohol ; second, 
that they were enduring real hardships from the scarcity 
and high price of clothing and foodstuffs ; and third, that 
in spite of these hardships they were absolutely united 
in an unshakable determination to continue the war until 
they had won a decisive victory over Germany. 

As to the first observation: I had no sooner crossed 
the frontier than I began to realize that Russia had 
changed over night from a besotted, brain-fogged nation 
to one of sobriety and thoughtfulness and self-respect. 
In place of the infamous vodka, that we used to hear so 
much about, a harmless beverage called " kwass " — 
made from fermented bread and tasting something like 
cider — was everywhere being dispensed. The result of 

130 




CAPTURED GERMAN CANNON, PETROGRAD 




Copyright, International News Service 

CROWDS ON THE NEVSKY PROSPECT, PETROGRAD, WHEN IT BECAME 
KNOWN THAT ENGLAND HAD DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 131 

this change is especially evident on holidays, of which 
there are thirty or more in the Russian calendar, besides 
Sundays, which are observed like holidays. Formerly it 
was inconceivable that any one could have a good time 
unless he celebrated a holiday by getting drunk. On such 
occasions, I was told, the streets of Petrograd and Mos- 
cow were almost literally filled with victims who had 
fallen in the gutters, unconscious from drink. The police 
never disturbed them, simply pushing them over close 
enough to the curb to prevent their being run over by 
the traffic. 

In a few of the most expensive city hotels intoxicants 
could still occasionally be had, but at such a prohibitive 
price that no one ventured to indulge. At Moscow my 
head waiter asked me if I wanted anything alcoholic. 
Out of curiosity I asked the prices, and found that a pint 
of vodka would cost me $20. Before prohibition was de- 
creed it wouldn't have cost me twenty-five cents. Dur- 
ing my entire stay I saw absolutely no one under the 
influence of liquor, from the padded " ishvorshik," or 
droshky driver, to the European visitor. And everybody, 
apparently, was delighted at the new sensation. All over 
Russia the black bottle had ceased to gurgle, and the 
samovar simmered in its stead. 

Of course when prohibition went into effect suddenly, 
almost without warning, many of the older inebriates 
died because of the cutting off of their favorite tipple. 
But by the time I reached Russia they had been elimi- 
nated, and the rest of the populace were quaffing their 



132 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

" kwass '* and sipping their tea as contentedly as Ameri- 
can college girls devouring chocolate sundaes. 

The necessaries of life, food and clothing I found 
expensive and scarce. Everywhere in Petrograd and 
Moscow bread lines, eloquent of want, stretched them- 
selves from shop door to street corner. In these telltale 
chains of privation the human links were mostly girls 
and women. Scantily clad, bareheaded, they assembled 
long before seven o'clock in the morning, each patiently 
awaiting her turn, in the gloom and the fog, to get the 
meagre day's allotment of bread. Poor Ivan's H. C. L. 
was so high that it towered above ours like a Russian 
wolfhound above a Yankee lapdog. I paid eighteen cents 
for a small glass of milk in an inexpensive restaurant — 
three times the former charge. 

As for luxuries, their prices were prohibitive. At the 
" zakuska " counter in my hotel, the Hotel de 1' Europe, 
craving some fruit, I bought a fine-looking pear and paid 
seventy cents for it. And when I bit into it, it was rotten 
to the core! Another evening I wanted to give my 
friends some real Yankee lemonade, so I ordered up a 
dozen lemons and we had a treat. When I got the bill 
I discovered the twelve lemons stood me just $3.50. 
After that I worried along on city water and an oc- 
casional glass of red or yellow " kwass." My table 
d'hote dinner, including kwass and a modest tip, cost 
me $3.00. If I wanted oysters, I was served a plate 
containing ten, for which the charge was $1.75. There 
were three days only on which beef or mutton might be 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 133 

eaten, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. But on other 
days one could procure chicken, or a native partridge 
common to the Russian forests, which is excellent eating. 

Whenever I lunched outside the hotel, with only a 
Russian bill of fare before me, my only chance to get 
nourishment was by shouting '* ham-and-eggs." Even 
an ivory-topped Muscovite could understand that. But 
before I got out of the country I was '' on the outs " 
with the whole Ham family, and could scarcely look an 
egg in the face! 

Although there were no food riots such as are reported 
from Germany and Austria, I know there was real suf- 
fering. One day, at the hotel door, I saw a pale young 
woman, not over twenty, with a baby in her arms, watch- 
ing the passers-by with a wan, wistful look. She made 
no movement and uttered no word that could be con- 
strued as begging. I gave her a rouble. The look of 
joy and relief that lit her face as she thanked me and 
rushed off toward a bread shop told me that I couldn't 
have made a better investment. 

That the Russian soldiers and the Russian peasants — 
three quarters of the entire population — are determined 
to wage war against Germany until victorious, and posi- 
tively will not " stand for " any sort of a peace not 
shared by their allies, was proved to me in many ways. 
The newspapers continually harped on the situation and 
advocated a persistent campaign until German militarism 
was stamped out forever. Again, time after time, I saw 
whole regiments on the march through the city stop in 



134 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

front of some church, bare their heads, kneel on the dirty- 
pavement and spend five minutes or more in devotional 
exercises. Then rising, they v^ould resume their march, 
while from a thousand throats ascended the stirring re- 
frain of the national hymn, '' Bozhe Czarya Khrani! " 
(God save the Czar.) 

I asked a prominent Russian official what would hap- 
pen if Petrograd should succeed in " putting over " a 
separate peace with Germany. Said he : '' If the bureau- 
crats of Russia made a separate peace, it would never get 
beyond Petrograd. The Russian army to a man would 
ignore it. The millions under arms would keep on fight- 
ing. You see, the Japanese war was different from this 
one. That happened in our back yard, and the nation as 
a whole was little concerned. This one is at our front 
door." 




left: souvenir of charity bazaar, petrograd, under auspices 
of the grand duchess olga 

right: RUSSIAN WAR POSTER, ADVERTISING A 5^ PER CENT WAR LOAN 




THE TAURIDA PALACE, PETROGRAD, MEETING-PLACE OF THE DUMA 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 

Petrograd — Eighteen Millions Under Arms — Two Million 
Refugees in Two Cities — The Perils of Speaking German. 

THROUGHOUT the length and breadth of 
Petrograd and Moscow was heard the tramp 
of soldier feet, and great drill grounds were 
everywhere alive with movement and melody. On the 
Champs de Mars I saw an elaborate arrangement of 
barbed wire entanglements, trenches, and all the para- 
phernalia of real war, which greatly aided the officers in 
their work of turning peasant farmers into human fight- 
ing machines. The Russians, by the way, are the most 
magnificent physical specimens I ever saw in uniform. 
In this respect none of the other belligerents could touch 
them. 

The total number called to the colors in Russia, it was 
learned from a veracious source, was 18,000,000. The 
estimate is one soldier to every ten persons, and is based 
on the Russian population of 180,000,000. 

At the time of my visit Russia was housing and feed- 
ing not less than 2,000,000 German and Austrian prison- 
ers. The American Ambassador, the official representa- 
tive of these two powers, had to employ a staff of ob- 
servers who visited the concentration camps and reported 
on the condition of the interned men. So far as I could 

135 



136 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

learn, it was good. In Moscow I saw large numbers 
of newly captured prisoners being marched through the 
streets, on their way to Siberia. 

The traveler who doesn't engage rooms in advance of 
arrival is foolish, as I learned to my sorrow at Moscow. 
I had been wiser in going to Petrograd, for I had tele- 
graphed from Stockholm for mine. When we got to 
Petrograd I discovered that an Englishman and his wife 
hadn't engaged theirs, but they declared, on our arrival 
at midnight, that they expected no trouble. The next day 
I learned that they had tramped all over the city, vainly 
seeking shelter, and finally had to come back to the Hotel 
de I'Europe, where they begged for the privilege of sit- 
ting in the office chairs until morning. 

The Russians were suspicious of everything German — 
even German names. My guide in Petrograd was an 
elderly man, German born, by the name of Lentz. He 
had lived in Russia twenty-five years, was a naturalized 
Russian citizen, and married to a native-born Russian 
woman. But in spite of his proved and well known loy- 
alty, he wouldn't go with me to the frontier, refusing 
twenty-five roubles a day and expenses. He told me the 
last time he went to Tornea with a tourist they didn't 
know him there, and on account of his German name 
and his accent he was detained for five days, practically 
a prisoner, before he could procure affidavits and secure 
his release. One day, while he was with me, he spoke 
a few words in German to the hotel porter. A " gum- 
shoed " sleuth standing near reported him to the police 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 137 

and it was only with the utmost difficulty that he escaped 
punishment. 

The weather this time of the year was abominable, the 
sun being above the horizon only three or four hours. 
While I was in Petrograd I never saw it once. Though 
there was no snow here, it was rainy and foggy all the 
time. Sleet added to the discomfort. With such long 
nights, the people are naturally great patrons of amuse- 
ments. Hundreds of moving picture houses were in full 
blast, and the theatres were packed nightly. The caba- 
rets, where one might dine and watch the dancing, were 
a great drawing card. 

With the fog pouring in from the Baltic, I trudged 
out one Sunday night, thinking I would attend the Grand 
Ballet, which enjoys the patronage of the court and 
royal family, particularly Princess Olga. A famous, 
but middle-aged dancer, an old favorite of the Czar, was 
scheduled to perform. I couldn't get a ticket, at least 
not unless I was willing to pay a king's ransom for it. 
The speculators had bought out the house and were ask- 
ing fabulous prices. I got hold of one fellow who had 
a single seat. I asked the price : '' One hundred and 
thirty-five roubles." 

I made a mental calculation. Forty-four dollars! 
" I'll give you a hundred," I plunged. 

" No, I'll not take a cent less than one hundred and 
thirty-five," he insisted. I didn't attend. An eighth row 
view of an ancient royal favorite isn't worth forty-four 
dollars of any one's money. 



138 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

I have already spoken of the universally kind and cour- 
teous treatment which the Russians accorded me. Offi- 
cials, hotel people, traveling companions, and chance ac- 
quaintances everywhere were considerate. Nor do I be- 
lieve the reports of the corruption of officials, as far as 
aliens getting concessions are concerned. I met Mr. 
Meserve, who heads the National City Bank of New 
York's organization in Russia. He said he had just got 
his charter — the first American bank to be so honored 
— and that he had had no trouble whatever, that brib- 
ery was unnecessary, and so far as he could learn, 
unknown. 

" Be straightforward with the Russians and they'll 
always give you a square deal," he said. '' And, by the 
way, there's a wonderful opportunity here now for 
American business men. They're even more popular 
than the English. And they ought to get a hustle on 
and capture the enormous trade formerly held by 
Germany." 



CHAPTER NINETEEN 

The Duma in Session — "Vox Populi " at Close Range — The 
Hated Ministers Attend and Hear Themselves Condemned. 

IN the soft half-light of a large, low-ceilinged room 
of a one-storied stone building in Petrograd, on 
the afternoon of Tuesday, November 14, 19 16, I 
witnessed the opening session of the Duma. It was 
through the courtesy of Ambassador Francis that I was 
enabled to be present, and through the assistance of a 
competent interpreter that I understood what was going 
on. I had the honor of sitting in the gallery at the Am- 
bassador's right. On the other side of me was an 
attache, Mr. Vesey, who knew Russian as a Londoner 
knows Cockney. There were in our party two other 
Americans — Mr. Basil Miles and Professor Emery. 

Eight months had elapsed since the delegates of the 
Duma had last convened; eight months since the Czar, 
alarmed by the vigor of its opposition and exercising the 
royal prerogative, had summarily prorogued the session. 

Smarting under the punishment, but loyal to the Little 
Father, the four hundred and fifty delegates had dis- 
persed to their homes. Without violence of overt resent- 
ment, they scattered to address themselves afresh to the 
task in hand, to win the war — some to the fields, some 
to the workshops, some to the trenches. 

139 



I40 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

But eight months of even the most arduous physical 
endeavors, eight months of exacting and exhausting serv- 
ice, eight months of sustained faith in God and country, 
could not close their ears to the whisperings of scandal, 
filtering down from the seats of the mighty, or inhibit 






fiflu BxoAa B-b rocyflapcTBeHMyio Aywy Ha 
sactnaHie « kMpMM Mtc. 191 r. 

Anfl r, . )iyx£i::^ CLiJ&^ 



.^nsa llHii^OHaTneeBaro Kopityea". 



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BosBpaiuaercn npH no/iyseHin eepxHnro onarbn. 



their minds from a consciousness of corruption among 
those high in authority. 

As all the world knows, the Russian is deeply relig- 
ious. The Czar is his spiritual father. The war is 
holy. And yet while faith, to the Russian as to the rest 
of us, is " the substance of things hoped for, the evi- 
dence of things not seen," it is straining the figure a bit 
when a crooked bureau chief ships to the front tons of 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 141 

boxes that are labelled " Munitions," but are filled with 
sawdust and old shoes. And it is insulting even peasant 
credulity to shunt a soldier off to the front and assure 
him that his wife and babes will be taken good care of 
on four roubles each a month, when that same soldier 
knows that in Petrograd milk is selling as high as forty 
kopecks a glass! 

Naturally, during these eight momentous months, the 
Russian peasant, at home and at the front, had been 
*' doing a lot o' thinking." Echoes of his opinion, based 
on what he had seen, heard or suspected, now and then 
cropped out in the newspapers — nothing menacingly 
definite, of course — the censor attended to all that — but 
between the lines there ran the mistful, wistful yearn- 
ings of a people dumb, but defiant; muzzled, but muti- 
nous. One might read such phrases as these, from the 
Moscow Russkiya Vedomosti: *' A crisis that touches the 
whole life of the Empire . . . the crisis in obtaining sup- 
plies, the experiments in remedying the situation, the 
present status of foreign policies, the new limitations 
of the press, dark rumors and dark facts . . . foretell 
a collision between the interests of the country and the 
present system of government, which does not believe in 
the same measures as do the people. Only a public- 
spirited and responsible Ministry will be able to shield 
the Empire from the precipice." And on the morning of 
November 14th my copy of the Petrograd Vecherneie 
Vremia told me : '^ These rumors create an unpleasant 
and sickly atmosphere, which is not at all helpful in 



142 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

calming down the passions. ... A great many painful 
subjects have to be considered at today's re-convening of 
the Duma which the country is awaiting with anxiety." 

This was as far as the press could go. It was as far 
as oral discussion could go. For Russia is emphatically 
a land of contrasts and contradictions. On one hand, 
freedom of the press, freedom of speech, are absolutely 
unknown. One may not speak with freedom of the 
doings of certain powerful court leaders, even in casual 
conversation with a friend. And the newspapers are in 
the grip of a censorship as uncompromising as Russian 
autocracy and militarism can make it. 

On the other hand there is the Duma. Here autocracy 
and bureaucracy have no voice. None but the Czar, and 
he only by prorogation, can coerce it. Here, and here 
alone in all Russia, does '' Vox Populi " find sanctuary. 
Is it any wonder that here, properly provoked, popular 
discontent goes to the wildest lengths of expression? 
Remove an eight-months gag from the mouth of any 
victim, and he is liable to speak somewhat loudly and 
very much to the point. The net result is a situation un- 
paralleled by any nation in the world. Outside the 
Duma you may not mention even the name of the court 
favorite. Under its protecting aegis you may not only 
" bawl him out " by name, but accuse him of the most 
treasonable crimes. Elsewhere in Russia the fear of 
" lese-majeste " padlocks your tongue. In the Duma the 
unfettered member may revel in an unlimited license to 
criticize, yea, even defame, every Minister of State. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 143 

Only the Czar himself, the head of the Church, is 
immune. 

After brooding over their wrongs for eight months, 
one hundred and eighty million Russians, through their 
chosen representatives, were about to make vocal their 
grievances, when on that gray and gloomy November 
afternoon I wended my way to the low stone structure 
wherein was scheduled to open the fifth session of the 
Duma since war was declared. 

In the spacious lobby I came upon the religious cere- 
mony that precedes each formal convening of the Duma. 
About three hundred delegates stood with bared heads, 
while priests and acolytes of the Greek Church — long- 
haired, bushy-bearded, impressively cloaked — intoned in 
deep voice the ritual, swung the censers, and chanted the 
deep antiphonals. Now and then a devout delegate 
would drop to his knees on the stone floor and cross him- 
self vigorously. Every worshipper was intent on the 
business in hand. In every face I could read veneration; 
in some, an expression of mundane humility; in a few, 
the light of a spiritual transfiguration. True believers, 
these, who would preface their philippics with their 
prayers ! 

The services over, I repaired to the visitors' gallery, 
where I found my allotted seat. Around me were dis- 
posed members of the Russian court and nobility and 
the ambassadors from allied and neutral powers, with 
their suites and families. On the floor the delegates were 
finding their places at the little chair-and-desk stations, 



144 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

arranged in concentric half -circles about the Speaker's 
platform. To the left, occupying at least half of the 
seats, went the country and peasant members, the belted 
blouse much in evidence. Among them I counted twenty 
priests of the Greek faith — long hair, vestments, beards 
and all — and one Roman Catholic, his smooth face and 
dissimilar garb offering a strong contrast. There were 
several soldiers in uniform, most of them officers, in 
full dress. 

To the right was a metropolitan gathering, showing 
the frock coats of a city and large town constituency. 
From these delegates came, as the afternoon wore on, 
more vigorous demonstrations than from the country 
members. If, after the bitter attacks of the day, the 
Ministers had any friends at all, I am confident that 
they could be found only in the ranks of the less informed 
and slower-thinking country members. In the cities, 
where suffering had been acute and painfully visible, the 
officials responsible for food supplies had won many 
bitter enemies. 

At two o'clock the President of the Duma, Mr. Rod- 
zianko, entered and took the chair, behind which hung 
a full-length, life-size portrait of the Czar, showing him 
standing on the balustrade of the Winter Palace. A 
murmur of half -suppressed amazement swept over the 
gathering as the Ministers of State, including Premier 
Stiirmer, entered briskly and walked to seats on the 
President's right. The Ministers of War and of Marine 
wore full regalia. The astonishment of the delegates 



^ m """■"m^s 1 , 1^. I 




A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 145 

was intense. Such had been the undercurrent of hostil- 
ity to these men, particularly to the Premier with the 
German name from the Germanized Baltic provinces, 
that none dreamed they would dare face their accusers. 
In fact, that morning's newspapers had stated that they 
would not be present. 

I was interested in studying the face of Boris Sturmer, 
this Teutonic man of power in the councils of the Russian 
state. A stolid, thick-set, gray-haired, gray-bearded man, 
with a short, wide nose, large, close-set ears, and deep, 
unfathomable eyes, the thoughts and feelings behind his 
mask-like face were about as easily read as those of the 
Sphinx. I could only wonder whether he were destined 
to succumb to the assaults of the aroused millions or to 
triumph in the interests of the autocratic few. 

The President's opening speech was restrained. In 
formal, graceful fashion he congratulated the Duma 
upon this opportunity to re-assemble and give utterance 
to its opinions and suggestions on matters of national 
and international import. He concluded by saying that 
this day's session would be devoted to full and frank 
statements of their views by the leaders of the leading 
political parties of the nation — the Progressives, the 
Constitutional Democrats, or Cadets, the Left Octobrists, 
the Zemstvo Octobrists, the National Progressives, the 
Central Group, and the Socialists. 

Twice only was the applause unusually strong or pro- 
longed. The first time was when, in ringing tones, he 
asserted, " This war will be fought until German mili- 



146 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

tarism is utterly destroyed. Until then, let there be no 
whisper of a separate peace for Russia ! " At this the 
delegates rose to their feet, applauding and " rah-rah- 
ing " for fully two minutes. The second came a moment 
later. The Speaker, after a swift look toward the gal- 
leries, had said, *' I am glad to see the Roumanian Am- 
bassador present," whereupon the members cheered 
warmly, and then went on, " I am also glad to see the 
British Ambassador." Immediately ensued the most 
terrific cheering of the day. Every man on the floor 
jumped to his feet and did his best to imitate Bedlam. 
Those in the galleries — nobles, courtiers and all — also 
rose and added their own din to that of the rest. This 
demonstration, lasting nearly five minutes, removed from 
my mind whatever lurking suspicion I might have had 
that Russia was not in full accord with England. 

At the close of the President's speech Premier Stiir- 
mer rose abruptly from his seat and left the building. He 
could see what was coming. The other Ministers re- 
mained — for a while. 



CHAPTER TWENTY 

A Socialist Mentions " Peace " and the Duma Starts an Uproar 
— Stiirmer Called a Traitor and His Removal Demanded — 
Professor Miliukoff — The Voice of the Press not Equal to 
the Duma's. 

TO the low rostrum immediately before and below 
him, the President first summoned the repre- 
sentative of the Socialists, a stocky, swarthy, 
bearded figure in a wrinkled gray suit, whose name was 
Puropatin and whose home was far away in the 
Caucasus. 

For a Socialist, as America understands the term, Puro- 
patin was mild. It is true that he criticized Stiirmer as 
soon as he began, but in such desultory terms that the 
delegates soon grew inattentive. Many looked bored; 
some yawned. The comparative unimportance of his 
party and his own drab personality aroused little interest. 
The house was gradually going to sleep, when, all of 
a sudden, the little man in gray took a step forward, 
raised his fist and shouted: 

** We Socialists demand peace ! " 

Then something happened. A young fire-eater in a 
frock coat leaped to his feet, shouting "Never!" An- 
other member repeated the word. Then seemingly the 
delegates were all on their feet at once, shaking their 
fists and shouting at the top of their lungs, " Niet, niet ! " 

147 



148 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

(No, no!) " Throw him out! " '' Away with him! " The 
President finally restored order by violently ringing his 
funny little dinner-bell — which is European for gavel 
— and the Socialist spokesman was allowed to proceed. 
Evidently the Dove with the Olive Branch stood about 
as much show here as she would in an abattoir for squabs. 

As spokesman for the Progressives, the most radical 
of all the Russian parties, M. Tcheidze, a young man of 
thirty or thirty-five, was next heard. His tall, command- 
ing figure and ringing utterances, delivered without 
notes, won the closest attention. 

" For my party," said he, " I demand a responsible 
Ministry. And to that end we call for the instant re- 
moval of the present one. On this point we will make 
no concessions whatever! Premier Stiirmer is today a 
greater enemy to Russia than the Germans themselves. 
His German name is enough to discredit him with every 
Russian. He is a ' snake in the grass ! ' " 

This was *' freedom of speech " with a vengeance! I 
couldn't help imagining what would happen to a Con- 
gressman, if, with the United States at war, he should 
venture to talk to the House in terms like these about our 
Secretary of State. 

Tcheidze then turned and faced the Minister of 
War, sitting stiff and forbidding in his full dress uni- 
form on the platform. Pointing an accusing forefinger, 
the speaker shouted : 

" You, sir, are to blame for the reverses of the army 
and for their shameful lack of munitions; nor are you 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 149 

guiltless of the sufferings of the people from the pitiable 
lack of food supplies ! " 

This was too much for the War Minister. He shot a 
withering look at Tcheidze, then rose and with exagger- 
ated dignity left the hall. At his heels trailed the Minis- 
ter of Marine, who doubtless concluded that he too would 
make for cover while the going was good ! 

That there was need of reform I could easily believe. 
Bread in Petrograd was selling for double the amount 
asked in peace times; butter was a dollar a pound; fire- 
wood sold for five times, and shoes three times peace 
prices. For an ordinary pair of rubber overshoes, cost- 
ing less than a dollar at home, I paid $3.33, and my 
Norwegian friend, Oye, had to pay $42 for a pair of 
shoes worth about $10 in the United States. Yet with 
such prices as these the wives and children of soldiers 
at the front were supposed to subsist on $1.33 a month 
for each person ! It was a wonder that bread riots were 
not daily occurrences and that the fires of revolution had 
not been kindled. 

After the departure of the Ministers, M. Tcheidze's 
remarks became even more bitter. Fed by the repeated 
bursts of applause, particularly those of the city delegates, 
his diatribes mounted to extraordinary heights. Finally, 
while he was in the midst of a scathing denunciation of 
the bureau chiefs, whom he accused of deliberately 
starving the populace. President Rodzianko reached 
down, tapped him on the shoulder, and whispered some- 
thing in his ear. Without completing his interrupted 



I50 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

sentence, without a single word, the fiery Progressive 
turned and strode to his seat as if shod with seven-league 
boots. 

Many lesser figures, of milder address, were heard 
until finally, at six o'clock, came the long heralded and 
anxiously awaited speech by Professor Paul Miliukoff, 
leader of the Constitutional Democrats. In this vener- 
able personage, a fine-looking man of about sixty, I 
recognized the Petrograd editor and polished scholar 
who lectured in the United States not many years ago. 
For an hour this intellectual and influential radical held 
the closest attention of the Duma. For fear they might 
miss something, many members in the rear surged to the 
front, crowding the aisles and hanging on his words until 
the very end. Amid a silence that hurt, he began his 
address. Like the others, he made his speech an attack 
upon the Ministers, and in it the misdeeds of Stiirmer 
bulked large. His excoriation of the Premier was even 
more pointed, more circumstantial than that of M. 
Tcheidze. But, unlike Tcheidze, he was permitted to 
continue to the end. He attained the extreme of invective 
when, speaking slowly and weighing each word care- 
fully, he solemnly declared : 

" Boris Stiirmer, Premier of Russia, I here and now 
do solemnly accuse you of accepting bribes from our 
common enemy, the German government. And I have 
in my possession the proofs of your infamy. Treacher- 
ously plotting, without the knowledge or consent of the 
Russian people, without the knowledge or consent of 




Copyright, International Film Service, Inc. 
M. RODZIANKO 



Copyright, International Film Service, Inc. 
PROF. PAUL MILIUKOFF 




Copyright, International Film Service, Inc. 
BORIS STURMER 



Copyright, International Film Service, Inc. 
GREGORY RASPUTIN 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 151 

our valiant allies, a separate peace with Germany, I dare 
voice the demand of a united people for your instant 
removal from office. And this is even less than you 
deserve. You should be imprisoned." 

In other days Miliukoff must inevitably have paid for 
such boldness with his liberty, if not his life. But that 
day Russia was at war. Russian soil was held by an 
invader, whom millions of Russians, now under arms, 
were called upon to withstand. And lest peradventure 
these millions and their weapons be turned upon himself, 
the Czar must perforce give ear to their spokesman. As 
I listened to Miliukoff's ominous words, I felt that they 
were more than the words of one man. They were the 
voice of Russia itself. 

Stiirmer was not the only scapegoat to be drawn into 
that seething caldron of incrimination. Several speak- 
ers alluded bitterly to '' a certain sinister influence at 
court " or to '' a Judas in high places, whose word is 
law." But when two of the speakers actually mentioned 
his name — Gregory Rasputin — and I afterward heard 
his story, I felt that the limit of forensic temerity had 
been reached. 

Once a hermit priest in Siberia, Rasputin won fame 
as a mystic and worker of miraculous cures which spread 
far to the west, even to Petrograd and to the imperial 
palace itself. Hither he was summoned, and before the 
nation could fairly realize it, he was the owner of two 
magnificent residences in Petrograd and had constant 
intimate access to the Czar's family. Here he was now 



152 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

firmly entrenched, wielding an almost despotic influence 
over the Czar, the Czarina, and the ladies of the court. 
He was even credited with being able, through the 
Emperor, of making and tmmaking Ministries. 

I talked with a gentleman who had once happened to 
travel with the favorite to Siberia. He said that on the 
train his attention was drawn to a party which included 
a grand duchess and other ladies of the imperial court. 
Besides two guardsmen, there journeyed with them a 
rather unclean, greasy man of about forty-five, wearing 
the garb and the customary long hair and bushy beard of 
a Russian priest. There was nothing remarkable about 
him except his eyes, which were exceptionally bright, 
piercingly black, and of a certain hypnotic power. Their 
strange companion exercised the greatest authority over 
the ladies, ordering their food, telling them when and 
what to eat, joking and laughing, addressing them in the 
most familiar terms, and at times even embracing them. 
This was Rasputin, the man of mystery, of power. Yet 
even his intimacy with the throne could not that day ward 
ofif the attacks of an aroused people, whose hatred was 
boldly voiced by one of the speakers who proclaimed him 
" the greatest enemy of Russia today." 

Of that memorable session of November 14th these 
are simply the " high lights." Other topics were touched 
upon, particularly the achievements of thei Russian army. 
Every mention of the defenders of the nation evoked 
deafening applause. Their bravery, sufferings and aspi- 
rations formed the theme of many an encomium. 



A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 153 

Plainly, the great heart of the Russian people was in the 
war and in it to stay, whatever may have been the mis- 
givings or vacillating inclinations of their rulers. And 
this conviction of mine, gained at the opening of the 
Duma, was strengthened by daily experience, both in 
Moscow and in Petrograd. 

When, time and again, you saw whole regiments of 
soldiers pause and kneel on the dirty pavement in front 
of a church, just to cross themselves and pray, you real- 
ized that stronger than the physical and the mental was 
the spiritual, that to the Russian, War was the hand- 
maiden of Religion, and that his God was a God of 
Battles. So strong was this feeling that I am confident 
that, even had Stiirmer's separate peace treaty succeeded, 
it could never have been enforced. The army and the 
peasantry would have repudiated it absolutely and would 
have kept on fighting, not only against the avowed enemy, 
Germany, but against the perfidious Ministers of Russia 
itself. 

There have been momentous results of this session of 
the Duma. In ten days Stiirmer had been deposed and 
the Ministers of War and Marine censured. Inside of 
two months Rasputin was murdered. And in four 
months the Czar lost his throne. 

Even that night, as I stepped out into the fog and 
gloom of Peter's City and threaded my way beneath the 
brooding domes, I had a feeling that I had been listen- 
ing to the John Hancocks, the Patrick Henrys and the 
Benjamin Franklins of a new Russia, that I had heard 



154 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

the tocsin of a genuinely " New Freedom," and that I 
had come closer than ever before in my life, probably 
closer than ever I should again, to momentous history 
in the making. 

Yet in the next day's Vecherneie Vremia, the foremost 
newspaper of Petrograd, looking under the heading, 
'' Echoes of the Session of the Duma," I beheld four 
columns of blank paper ! Whatever was intended to ap- 
pear there, had been deleted by the censor. But it was 
not wholly blank. In that sea of white was one wee 
smudge of printer's ink, which said : '' One of the speak- 
ers read some verses of Pushkin about Slavonic 
streams ! " 

Verily, the way to keep a secret in Russia is to tell it 
to a newspaper! 



VALEDICTORY 

SO far I have no more to relate of war gaddings. 
My return, all the way from Petrograd (via 
Copenhagen and the Oscar II) to my own house, 
was uneventful, and much like my journey over, except 
for lower temperatures and shortened days — so much 
shortened at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, that 
Tornea in December has nothing better to call a day than 
about two hours of twilight. 

I felt pretty sure, during all the voyage home, that 
this was the last of my war wanderings. With the tight- 
ening of regulations in all fighting countries, the chances 
were less every month that a gadabout could see the 
front, and they wouldn't have me for an ambulance- 
driver. I wasn't especially anxious to visit, even if I 
could arrange to do so, Vienna and Rome, the only capi- 
tals of the greater belligerent nations which I had not 
been to. Probably I should receive no impressions from 
them essentially different from what I had already re- 
ceived in Berlin, Petrograd, Paris and London. And 
so I told myself that I would now keep out of the War 
Zone, unless it was extended to the U. S. A. In that 
case, I shall not have to gad to be in it. If one of the 

155 



156 A WAR ZONE GADABOUT 

results of the Great Conflict should be the establishment 
of a real War Zone in the United States, what part of 
the country more likely for it than mine — the north- 
eastern seaboard? 



THE END 



INDEX 



Abbeville, 34, 36, 62 

Airplanes, 28, 40, 41, 43, 44, 52, 

85 
Albert, King of Belgium, 43, 60, 

61 
Allen, A. J., 31-75, 79-93 
American Ambulance, Neuilly, 

68, 108 
American Consul, Antwerp, 9 
American Consul, Calais, 42 
American Consul, Havre, ^2, 74 
American Consul, Petrograd, 126 
" American Distributing Serv- 
ice," 107 
** American Fund for French 

Wounded," 107 
" American War Relief Clear- 
ing House," 107 
Antwerp, 8-1 1, 42 
"Appui aux Artists," 107 
Atrocities, 24, 58, 59 
Austin, Mabel F., vii, 10, 114 
Austrian Prisoners, 135 

B 

Bacon, Robert, 68 
Baths, Chemical, 112, 123 
Beavis, Doctor, 32, 59, 60 
Belgian Field Hospital, Furnes, 
32, 59, 60 



Belgian Refugees, 29, 34, 45 
Belgium (see Antwerp, Esschen) 
Berlin, 15-27, JZ, 9i, 102 
Bieloostrow, 124 
Bliss, Robert W., 68, in 
Bliss, Mrs. Robert W., 107 
Bordeaux, 68, 99-103, 106, 109, 

III 
Boston Evening Transcript, vii, 

78, 97 
Boulogne, 33, 34, 37 
British Ambassador to Belgium, 

69 
British Ambassador to Russia, 

146 
British Consul, Havre, 72-74 
British Prisoners, 18 
Bulgarians, 90 

Burgess, Rev. Francis G., no 
Burgess, Theodore P., no 



Calais, 36, 38-41, 52, 62 
Canadians, 33, 82 
Cannes, loi 
Casino at Nice, no 
Charing Cross Station, 81 
Charlottenburg, 17 
China Image, 49, 50 
Chinese Soldiers, 100, loi 
Christiania, 115 

57 



158 



INDEX 



Christiansand, 115 
Cloth Hall at Ypres, 50 
Coliseum Theatre, London, 83 
Cook's Agency, 67, 74 
Copenhagen, 155 
Cossacks, 18, 24 
Covent Garden, 85 

D 
Davis, Richard Harding, v 
Dedham Transcript, vii, 78, 97, 

125 
Dixmude, 46, 49 
Downing Street, 90, 93, 94 
" Dreadnaught," The, 32-34, 56, 

57, 79, 102 
Duma, The, 139-154. 
Dunkirk, z^, 41-44, 54, 61, 85 



Ecole des Beaux Arts, 104 

Eiffel Tower, 66 

Ellis, H. C, 68 

Emery, Professor, 139 

" Enfants de Flandres," 107 

" Enfants de la Frontiere," 107 

Esschen, 8 

Essen, 28 

Etaples, 37 

Everybody's Magazine, vii 

Eymal, Antoinette, 42 

Eymal, Fernand, 42, 43 



Fiske, Charles H., Jr., 103, iii 
Fleury, 63 
Flushing, 8, 29 
Folkestone, 5-7, 29-31 
Francis, Ambassador, 113, 135, 
139 



"Frank," 67 
Frederik VIII, S.S., 113 
French, General, 33, 35 
French Prisoners, 18 
Frimley, 93 
Furnes, 44-48, 58-61 



German Consul at Rotterdam, 

II, 12 
German Prisoners, 93, 100, 135 
German Stowaway, 115 
Germany, 13-28 
Gironde River, 100 
Gisors, 63 

Guild, Courtenay, vi 
Guild, Curtis, 114 

H 

Hanover, 14 

Haparanda, 118, 120, 129 

Havre, 34-36, 63, 69-74 

Hereford, William R., 96 

Herrick, Myron T., 67, 68 

Holland, 8-1 1, 28-30 

Hotchkiss, Edwin B., 29-75, 103 

Hotchkiss, Harold, 39, 41, 51, 56, 
62 

Hotel Adlon, Berlin, 15-17 

Hotel Bordeaux, Havre, 62,, 69, 
71 

Hotel Brasserie Lilloise, Dun- 
kirk, 43, 44, 61 

Hotel Burgundy, Paris, 63, 103 

Hotel Cecil, London, 85 

Hotel de I'Europe, Petrograd, 
125, 132, 136 

Hotel de Famille, Calais, 39 

Hotel de Paris, Nice, no 

Hotel Grand, Calais, 62 



INDEX 



159 



Hotel Maas, Rotterdam, 11 
Hotel Metropole, Havre, 34 
Hotel Morley, London, 2, 31, 80, 

84, 85, 94 
Hotel National, Moscow, 127 
Hotel South-Western, South- 
ampton, 74 
Hotel Touilliers, Antwerp, 11 
Hotel Vouillemont, Paris, 103 
Huntress, Mrs. Dulany, 109 



I 

Invalides, Place des, 104 
Iron Cross, 14, 24, 25 



K 
Kirkwall, 114, 115 
Krupp Works at Essen, 28 
**Kwass," 130, 132 



La Fayette, S.S., 103, 106, in, 

113 
Lallement, General, 67 
Lansing, Robert W,, 91 
Lentz, Mr., 136 
Letter of Credit, 25, 26, 40, 62, 

74, 116 
Liverpool, 2, 69, 74, 75, 78, 79, 95 
London, 1-5, 31-33, 70, 74, 79-95 
Lord Mayor's Day, 32 
Lusitania, The, i, 2, 57, 79 

M 
" Marseillaise," The, 22, 100 
Marseilles, loi, 108 
Maynadier, G. Howard, vi 
McCall, Governor, 113, 122 



Mendelssohn & Co., Berlin, 26 

Meserve, Mr., 138 

Michael Alexandrovitch, Grand 

Duke, 128 
Miles, Basil, 139 
Miliukoff, Professor Paul, 150, 

151 
Milner, George, 41, 51, 55, 62 
Mines, 8, 31, 75, 118 
"Mon Soldat," 107 
Mons, 25, 35 
Monte Carlo, 109, no 
Morning Post, London, 85 
Morrison, Lieutenant, 32 
Moscow, 126-129, 131, 135, 136, 

141 
Moulin Rouge, 66 
Mourning, 25, 66 

N 
National City Bank, Petrograd, 

138 
Navarre, Aviator, 108 
Neuilly, 68 

New York, S.S., 94, 95 
New Zealanders, 32 
Nice, loi, 108-110 
Nice, American Episcopal 

Church at, no 
Nieuport, 31, 46, 49, 62 
Nieuport Cathedral, 62 
Notre Dame Cathedral, Rouen, 

63 



Olga, Princess, 137 
Olney, 2d, Richard, vi, 78 
Oscar II, S.S., 155 
" Ouvroir Franco-Beige," 107 
Oye, Thomas, 118, 129 



i6o 



INDEX 



Paris, 63-69, 103-111 

Passports, 5, 9, 11, 12, 22, 72-74, 

77. 78, 90-94, 97, 99, 114, 116, 

118, 119, 125-127 
" Permis," 33, 36, 41, 43, 45, 54 
"Permis de Sejour," 103, 105, 

108 
Permit Office, London, 90-94 
Peters, Andrew J., vi, 79 
Petrograd, 125 et seq. 
" Phare " or " Lighthouse," 107 
Picadilly Cafe, Berlin, 22 
Polchow, Musketier, 67 
Pontoise, 69 
Potsdam, 26 
Prince of Lippe, 42 
Princess Juliana, S.S., 29 
Prison Camp near Berlin, 18 
Puropatin, Socialist, 147, 148 



Rasputin, Gregory, 1 51-153 

Recruiting, 3, 4, 81, 82 

Roberts, Lord, 34 

Rochamheau, S.S., 97-100 

Rodzianko, Michael, 144-149 

Rosendahl, 8 

Rotterdam, 11, 27, 7Zi 102 

Rouchy, Sergeant, 71 

Rouen, 63 

Roulers, 52 

Roumanian Ambassador to Rus- 
sia, 146 

Royal Army Medical Corps, 86, 
87 

Russia, III et seq. 

Russian Ballet, 137 

Russian Consul, Stockholm, 116 



Russian Prisoners, 18 
Russian Socialists, 147 



Sainte Adresse, 34, 35, 69 
Saint Martin's Cathedral, Ypres, 

51 
Saint Ouen Church, Rouen, 63 
Saint Paul, S.S., 79, 92 
Sale, C. v., 92, 93 
Sans Souci, Potsdam, 26 
" Sauf-Conduit," 108 
Schleswig-Holstein Lady, 5-7 
Secret Service Men, Paris, 105, 

106 
Senegalese, 36, 45, 58, loi 
Serbians, lOi, 109 
Sergeant Major, 70, 71 
Sharpe, Ambassador, ^ 
Sikhs, 34, 36, 45, 50 
Smith-Dorrien, General, 33 
Southampton, 72, 74 
Souvenirs, 67, 105 
Stimson, Frederick, J., vi 
Stockholm, 115, 116, 118, 129, 136 
Strand, The, 82, 85 
Student Artists, 104, 105 
Stiirmer, Boris, Ex-Premier, 

144-153 
Submarines, 98, 115, 118 
Sweden (see Stockholm, Hapa- 

randa) 



Tcheidze, M., 148-150 
" Tipperary," 18, 20, 21, 34, 70, 87 
Tornea, 120, 121, 136 
Tornea, River, 119 
Touraine, S.S., 72 
Trafalgar Day, 2, 3 



INDEX 



i6i 



Transylvania, S.S., 69, 73, 75 
Trist, A. Ronald, 62, 63- 
Turcos, 24, 34, 36, 45 

U 
Uleaborg, 124 
" Umsteigen," 13 
Unitarianism, 125 

V 

" Vaterland," Cafe, 22 

Vesey, Mr., 139 

"Vestiaire Franco-Beige," 107 

Vienna, 27 

" Vive la France ! " 70, 79 

Vodka, 130, 131 



W 

Wager, 2, 73, 74, 76 
Walsh, Governor, 78 
Warren, Winslow, vi, 67 
Werner, F. Otto, 17-27 
Wilhelm, Kaiser, 27, 61, 91 
Wounded, 27, 104, 107-108 



Ypres, 41, 46, 47, 49-52, 58 
Ypres, Battle of, 31, 61 
Yser, River, 49 



Zeppelin; Zeppelin Raids, 5, 26, 
66, 81, 83-88, 95 



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